The Quality of Mercy

I went to see the new movie, The Merchant of Venice this afternoon. It's set in 16th century Venice and the really neat thing about filming a movie in Venice, even today, is that it all still looks pretty much as it did 450 years ago. All you need is authentic costumes, older style gondolas and boats and have everyone in the villas make sure they keep the electric lights turned off :) Al Pacino played Shylock. Unusual choice. He certainly looked the part and, erm, mercifully, didn't try to put on a British accent but he did alter his accent some to sound more like an Israelite. Didn't always succeed and sounded a bit stilted sometimes. But not bad and it's better than Brooklynese lol Damn but he does have a great voice now that it's older and more gravelly. The only drawback i found was that his face was altered with a lot of makeup, extra folds and jowls, with the latex stuff they use, you know.. The problem with that is that it makes the face more immobile and you don't get the facial expressions nearly as strongly. Thus, Shylock seemed curiously expressionless a lot of the time when he should have been raging, or grief stricken, a broken man at the end. You have to do the acting with your voice and your eyes when you are hampered by extra makeup. He did with the voice. Damn right. But his eyes didn't seem to have the expression necessary and maybe that was because of the makeup/prosthesis. I think they must have enhanced his forehead a bit in addition to adding fuller jowly cheeks. So why can't they just leave it alone? slap a beard and fake eyebrows on him and let him have a skinny little face?

Or why can't you just use Ian MacKellan? Ok, he's probably too tall for it. But he'd have been good.

Sounds picky i guess. I think he did a great job but the makeup was a bit hampering which made it a little distracting. Everyone else did a bang up job. Jeremy Irons played Antonio with a quiet dignity and grace. Ralp Fiennes was Bassanio. I'm not sure i would have cast him but he did a good job just the same. A woman named Lynn Collins played the ethereal Portia and she was perfect for it. The costumes were fabulous and the scenery... well it's Venice :) I love Shakespeare and i enjoyed the movie.

Official website if you're interested

Had a nice long chat to my sweetie on the phone this morning. Always sets my day up to hear his voice. :)