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Pacino draws Oscar buzz in "Merchant of Venice"
William Shakespeare may have shuffled off this mortal coil 400 years ago, but his take on fundamentalism has warnings for today, in a new movie version of "The Merchant of Venice" starring Al Pacino.
"The Merchant of Venice," a tale of romance and revenge, is one of the Bard's most popular plays, yet until now never made it to the big screen, though Orson Welles had hoped to film it.
English director Michael Radford sets the battle of vengeance between Shylock the moneylender and the merchant Antonio in a dark and heaving Venice, a mine of distrust, torn between extreme Christianity and Judaism.
Co-star Jeremy Irons said the film, which had a North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, shows "what happens if you take fundamentalism to the nth degree."
"We seem to be living in a world that is more and more fundamentalist, people are polarising themselves more and more."
The play still resonates in a modern world plagued by radicalism and misunderstandings between religions : "it is about two cultures who don't understand each other," Radford said.
Productions of "The Merchant of Venice" often spark accusations of anti-Semitism, as Shylock, while demonised by his enemies, is a stereotype of a vindictive and greedy Jew.
The plot hangs on Shylock's demand for the letter of the law on a bond which offers him a pound of Antonio's flesh, once a loan to the merchant is forfeited.
But Shakespeare also portrays Shylock and his tribe as unjustly persecuted in the famous "if you prick us, do we not bleed" speech.
Pacino, kept from Toronto by filming commitments, offers a growling Shylock, broken and humiliated at the end of the movie, which dispenses with much of the unfathomable comedic scenes of the play.
Best known for his roles in "Scarface" and "The Godfather," Pacino is a lifelong Shakespeare enthusiast and once made "Looking for Richard" about the play "Richard III."
"People don't want to do Shakespeare, they are afraid," Pacino told the London Times at the Venice film festival, where due to a clerical error he was locked out of the movie premiere.
"We have a tendency to close off when we don't understand something. If we were made to feel more open and not afraid, we'd be able to experience it more."
Even with Pacino on board, the "Merchant of Venice" was a hard sell to Hollywood financers, said co-producer Cary Brokaw.
"There was a lot of scepticism about doing this movie, largely because of the anti-Semitic aspect to it," he said.
Playing opposite Pacino, Irons draws on a rich career on the English stage for his portrayal of Antonio, embuing his speeches with the rhythm of modern conversation.
Joseph Fiennes plays Bassanio, locked with Antonio in a 16th century love triangle with Portia, a beautiful maiden he woos with the help of the ill-fated loan Antonio secured from Shylock. The movie introduces Texas-born novice Lynn Collins, who as a teenager, once attended a Shakespeare masterclass at Oxford University.
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