Is It Noir? Revisiting The Merchant of Venice

MGM

 Some time back, I posited The Merchant of Venice was noir. Additionally, I said it could be a comedy as well, though just reading it, a lot of the nuance doesn't come through. Someone in the comments noted Shakespeare is meant to seen, not read. It just so happens I'm watching a Shakespeare play a week, including the questionably canonical Edward III. (I still posit Will was a script doctor on that one, and boy did it need doctoring.) My viewing has including live plays, Zoom readings by various local Shakespeare groups, and of course, movies either by the RSC or Hollywood and the UK cinema. And I've seen The Merchant of Venice now, this time the Al Pacino version.

Henry Winkler once said he noticed when English actors do Shakespeare, they sound like they're ordering a pastrami sandwich, but American Shakespearean actors sound like their doing classical oration. It's not necessarily a bad thing (and the exceptions to either are legion), but the assertion holds as a generalization. And here it works. 

Antonio, Bassano, and Portia are ordinary characters, their actors giving understated performances in this film. And then we have Shylock, who is not in very many scenes, but he has to cast a huge shadow over the proceedings. The bulk of the cast is English or English-trained. But Shylock is played by Al Pacino. And if Pacino does anything well, it's stealing every scene he's in.

But all the other things people say about this play? Antisemitic? It's actually a play about antisemitism, and once these characters step off the page, you realize the Bard took a very dim view about how the English treated the Jews under Queen Elizabeth and King James. But he's not talking about England. He's talking about Genoa and Venice. Right?

Is there a romance between Antonio and Bassano? Well, you can't read this play without at least picking up on an intense bromance. I love my male best friends, but I'm not risking bankruptcy or having Michael Corleone carve a pound of meat out of me to pay for their weddings. I might put a night at BW3 on my credit card, which my stepson and I did for our youngest. (The groom's alcohol-fueled transformation into Jack Sparrow was hilarious!) In the movie? It's not stated, but it's there. These men are more than just buddies, and fair Portia is a prize. 

But it's Shylock, the loan shark, who owns this play. And Pacino puts his lines in context. Most people are used to hearing Christopher Plummer's scenery-chewing Klingon reciting some of Shylock's lines in Star Trek VI. But as Chang gleefully tries to straight-up murder the crews of two starships, he rattles off out-of-context lines spinning in his chair and delivering the lines wrong. (It works in the context of this movie as it prompts McCoy to growl, "I'd give real money if he'd shut up!") Pacino is not going "Look at me! I know Shakespeare!" as he introduces his leetle friends to his enemies. No, the "Prick us, do we not bleed" speech isn't showing off. It's a man victimized by the world around pleading for his listeners to understand. He's a classic noir villain, wanting violence as revenge wrapped in legalism (with Cain, Richard Wright, and Jim Thompson taking copious notes), but he has a painful motivation. He's tired of being treated like garbage. He's good enough to take his money but spat upon otherwise? Shakespeare excels at this kind of character, one who will play the monster if he can't be the hero. Or even just a man. In this, he has much in common with Shakespeare's Richard III, but Dick is straight up a very bad man. Shylock just wants his due.

Oh. And it's still a comedy. I mean, Murphy's law, bromance, and everyone tripping all over themselves? It's like Succession on acid.