The merchant of intrigue

What was the producer of Merchant of Venice thinking? Possibly about the Middle East imbroglio

by Junius

The Merchant of Venice is not a film to avoid; quite the opposite. But I would feel easier about it if I could understand why it was done at this time. It is all crystal clear, shiningly lucid, except for the producer's motivation.

It isn't for schools—there are too many bare-breasted courtesans. It wasn't done for the groundlings at our local Globe Theatre, although some of the audience clapped at the end because Shakespeare can still provoke a pleasant smile by suggesting that, in the war of the sexes, women are much cleverer than men, and by tying up twists of plot with pretty ribbons and bows.

But didn't the audience notice that the film ended with the worried face of Jessica? Shylock's daughter, who took the opportunity of a love match to remove herself from a stifling ghetto life, knows she has hurt her father and the synagog, and cannot have real peace no matter how many lovely speeches by Lorenzo on the beauty of the starlit night. Her father's Torah ring twists on her finger.

I was worried too that the radical question is not over and that, indeed, this film appears now out of the pleroma of our times because the twentieth century had its radical conflagration and the twenty-first century is fully into our own racial revenge cataclysm. The feminist theme plays its part as criticism by contrast: the role of women in Islamic fundamentalism is one of the stated reasons for the “War on Terror.” But the other major assertion of The Merchant of Venice gets quite close, it seems to me, to what is fueling the various moves the US is making. That is, that Christians are more just and merciful than Semitic peoples, especially Arabs.

Shylock is “mercifully” given his life, but the gagging judgment against him is that he must become a Christian, and it is intimated that that is part of the mercy, a forced blessing. This is something Shakespeare added to his borrowed plot, with his customary insight into how the Christian mind, when it is in power, might work. If we cast Condaleezza Rice as the Portia of the courtroom scene and Osama bin Laden as Shylock, with Dick Cheney as the judging Duke of Venice, we can bring the whole thing up to date. The solution to the Middle East question is that they had better all become Baptists.

These broader issues must have been in the producer's mind—or maybe his model really was the racial comedy Bend It Like Beckham , which I read was one of the two conscious “blueprints” for the film, the other being Nashville. If so, it was his powerful unconscious which has given us a classic for our times.

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