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Watch The Merchant of Venice (2004) Full Movie on New Films International
In a decadent version of renaissance Venice, a young nobleman named Bassanio seeks to woo the lovely Portia but lacks the money to travel to her estate. He seeks support from his friend, the merchant Antonio; Antonio’s fortune is tied up in sea ventures, so the merchant offers to borrow money from a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. But Shylock holds a grudge against Antonio, who has routinely treated the Jew with contempt, and demands that if the debt is not repaid in three months, the price will be a pound of Antonio’s flesh.
Director: Michael Radford
Writer: William Shakespeare, Michael Radford
Starring: Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins
The Merchant of Venice remains one of Shakespeare’s most frequently taught and hotly debated texts. Some mistakenly regard it as an anti-Semitic text, others see it as an interesting, flowered romantic comedy. These lectures argue that this great play is a darkly comic study of the dehumanizing effects of prejudice upon both victims and victimizers, and a probing analysis of the spiritual emptiness of a wealth-obsessed society.
Location: JCR, Pritzker Student Center Speaker: Claudia Hauer, tutor The Merchant of Venice is a troubling play. Its position among Shakespeare’s comedies is undermined by many disturbing elements that threaten to pull the tale into the realm of tragedy. The plot depends on a certain amount of anti-Semitic profiling and prejudice. The central love affairs require the protagonists to navigate the divides between rich and poor, innocence and cynicism, Christian and Jew. The audience must traverse the unsavory city of Venice and the dubious utopia of Belmont. Themes of betrayal are found at every level of the plot. In this talk, I will discuss these challenges to constructing a unified interpretation, and ask what kind of resolution we might find in the play’s conclusion.