I've (cough cough) been ill
Stinky, boring cold. Dontcha just love this time of year!
Over the weekend TOH and I went to see The Merchant Of Venice, billed, helpfully by Hollywood as William Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice.
It was a lavish production and it only took about an hour to get into the language and plot.
Basically, back in the day in Venice, people didn't like Jews. They'd spit on them, prohibit them from owning property, lock them up in their ghetto after dark and force them to wear a red hat.
The hero, Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), borrows some cash off The Merchant (Jeremy Irons) to woo Portia (Lynne Collins looking very very much like Cate Blanchett), because she will only marry a rich fella who also has to pass a Krypton Factor-style test involving boxes and portraits.
The Merchant Antonio in turn borrows it from Shylock (Al Pacino) because he doesn't actually have any ready cash - it is all tied up in some ships.
The deal is, if the merchant can't pay back his debt on time, Shylock can cut off a pound of his flesh as payment. They come to this agreement as Shylock remembers the merchant spat on him on the Bridge Of Sighs, or similar, for being Jewish and he is slightly bitter about it and only too willing to have Antonio in his debt.
As a complete beginner when it comes to The Bard, I hesitantly propose that Elizabethan audiences were not too keen on Jews. The long and short of it is the hero, his pals, Portia etc etc end up being very smug that not only have they diddled Shylock out of all his worldly possessions but forced him to convert to Christianity. Perhaps Shakespeare thought they were doing him a favour, saving his mortal soul and all that.
Shylock is a broken man, he's spent his life being shat on for being a Jew, lost his daughter, lost all his money, was evicted from the ghetto and lost the right to practice his faith. It all seems very unfair to modern audiences.
It was amusing to see the thick son out of My Family playing the hero's sidekick and MacKenzie Crook in there as a servant.
The film was a good effort though, and worth seeing if you fancy a bit of a 'challenge'.
I expect Pacino will be nominated for an Oscar for this.
Over the weekend TOH and I went to see The Merchant Of Venice, billed, helpfully by Hollywood as William Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice.
It was a lavish production and it only took about an hour to get into the language and plot.
Basically, back in the day in Venice, people didn't like Jews. They'd spit on them, prohibit them from owning property, lock them up in their ghetto after dark and force them to wear a red hat.
The hero, Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), borrows some cash off The Merchant (Jeremy Irons) to woo Portia (Lynne Collins looking very very much like Cate Blanchett), because she will only marry a rich fella who also has to pass a Krypton Factor-style test involving boxes and portraits.
The Merchant Antonio in turn borrows it from Shylock (Al Pacino) because he doesn't actually have any ready cash - it is all tied up in some ships.
The deal is, if the merchant can't pay back his debt on time, Shylock can cut off a pound of his flesh as payment. They come to this agreement as Shylock remembers the merchant spat on him on the Bridge Of Sighs, or similar, for being Jewish and he is slightly bitter about it and only too willing to have Antonio in his debt.
As a complete beginner when it comes to The Bard, I hesitantly propose that Elizabethan audiences were not too keen on Jews. The long and short of it is the hero, his pals, Portia etc etc end up being very smug that not only have they diddled Shylock out of all his worldly possessions but forced him to convert to Christianity. Perhaps Shakespeare thought they were doing him a favour, saving his mortal soul and all that.
Shylock is a broken man, he's spent his life being shat on for being a Jew, lost his daughter, lost all his money, was evicted from the ghetto and lost the right to practice his faith. It all seems very unfair to modern audiences.
It was amusing to see the thick son out of My Family playing the hero's sidekick and MacKenzie Crook in there as a servant.
The film was a good effort though, and worth seeing if you fancy a bit of a 'challenge'.
I expect Pacino will be nominated for an Oscar for this.
posted by The WyeBird @ 4:42 pm
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