Pacino as Shylock and The Merchant of Venice

The best thing about the new movie version of “The Merchant of Venice” is Al Pacino. He dominates the film as Shylock with the best piece of Shakespearean acting this humble correspondent believes he has ever seen. Maybe the best acting, full stop. He is utterly real, in a way the other characters are not. It is Shylock’s play.

But then, it always was, wasn’t it?

The worst thing about the movie is the awkward attempts to deal with the “anti-Semitism” of the play. Not the director’s fault: this was necessary, so as not to fall afoul of current political correctness. But it did distort the play, and was embarrassing to watch.

Is “The Merchant of Venice” anti-Semitic? In the strictest sense, it is not. It has no interest in Shylock’s Semitism. Anti-Judaism, perhaps. And it has no interest in stirring up trouble for Jews; there were no Jews in England.

It is a very Christian play. It is an apologetic for Christianity, as Christian in its way as last year’s “The Passion.” It genuinely believes in Christianity.

It necessarily follows that it does not believe Judaism is true: two claims, if they disagree, cannot both be true, regardless of what postmodernists want to assert. Aristotle settled that one for all time.

Christianity has the right to make its argument for the falsity of Judaism.

In making the argument, though, is the play fair to Judaism?

No, it is not. It claims that Judaism lacks the concept of divine mercy, and of mercy to one’s enemies. But this concept is clear in the “Old Testament,” the Hebrew Scriptures. God forgives Nineveh; he forgives David; he forgives Israel many times. His covenant with Israel clearly does not depend on the people’s just deserts.

But the play is not really interested in disproving Judaism either. Judaism, as noted, was not a philosophy with adherents in England at the time. Judaism, and Shylock, are rather symbolic representations of an imperfect Christianity: Christianity without Christ. It is just a historical accident that the play came to be known in places where it might be misinterpreted as anti-Semitic.

That said, note too that Shylock is not just a foil, not just a comic humour, but the hero of the play. He dominates, and he is meant to dominate. No Christian character comes close to his importance to the story: the Christian lead is split three ways, among Portia, Antonio, and Bassanio, and none of them is brought to life the way Shylock is. Antonio and Portia, by contrast, seem cardboard figures; neither they nor Bassanio show any character development. It is they who are foils for Shylock.

And the central dilemma of the play is Shylock’s dilemma: the conflict between our holy thirst for righteousness, and our own need for mercy.

We accordingly, as audience, identify with Shylock, and are meant to identify with him. We feel the insults he has suffered. Note that the play was apparently commonly known, in its day, as “The Jew of Venice,” not “The Merchant of Venice.”

The title may have shifted because this seems to make the play a tragedy, not a comedy; properly, Shylock is a tragic hero.

But it is not quite that: Shylock does not go mad and die, as a tragic hero should. Instead, he must pay a fine and become a Christian. And he must forgive his daughter. This might seem harsh, but it is mostly symbolic: neither Christianity nor Judaism recognizes forced conversions.

It is, perhaps, not a comedy or a tragedy, but a morality play.

But if Shylock is a tragic hero, his tragic flaw is his righteousness—remembering that the same characteristic must be responsible both for the hero’s greatness and his undoing.

Shylock is, notably, more righteous, more honourable, than the Christian characters.

Bassanio, to begin with, is a wastrel. Antonio is arrogant; we know he has spat upon Shylock, and we see him being arrogant even when asking for the moneylender’s help. Shakespeare intends his anti-Semitism, indeed, to count against him in our eyes. It is arrogance, surely, and contempt, that tempts him into his fool’s bargain of the pound of flesh.

Both Bassanio and Antonio try to give a gratuity to a judge. This would have been morally suspect at the time just as today—Francis Bacon was up on charges for having accepted such a gratuity.

Portia’s guilt is even greater: it is of course outrageous for her to judge the trial under a false identity, with no formal qualifications, and feigning disinterest in a case in which she is vitally interested. Shylock is cheated.

In converting to Christianity, Shylock’s daughter Jessica runs off with boxes of his gold; never mind the matter of disobedience to a parent. As if this is the essence of what “becoming a Christian” means.

Shylock points out that Christians commonly do not forgive; and everyone in Shakespeare’s audience would know this to be true.

So Shylock is a good man, an upright man, and a better man than those around him. Nevertheless, he is betrayed by this very trait: by the great importance he puts on righteousness, on his covenant, his bond. For this is still not as admirable as mercy.

The story is told in small, as so often in Shakespeare, in the parable of the three boxes. Paganism, represented by Portia’s suitor, chooses “what many men desire”—it is driven purely by desire. An imperfect righteousness seeks justice: that each man get what he deserves. But a higher morality, true Christian virtue, will hazard all he has for others.

Shylock is at stage two, and the play is his journey to stage three. The audience, in being made to identify with him, is drawn with him through the same moral choice and, one hopes, the same moral revelation.

The theme of the play is the difference between justice and mercy. It only works, it seems to me, if the audience identifies with Shylock. If we do not see that we are all Jews, and scorn Shylock as a villain, we have missed the point of the play.

And called judgment upon ourselves.