Daniel Robert Epstein: Michael Radford

I'm looking forward to seeing this film, partly because I'm curious to see how Shylock is presented (sympathetic vs. total heel) and partly because I had heard about the Antonio/Bassanio gay angle and am interested to see how that's done, and whether it detracts from the film's trueness to the original text or not. I like some of the Shakespeare adaptations that experiment with the texts, like the Richard III w/ Ian McKellan, but I much prefer the films to stay true to the text. Zeffereli's Romeo and Juliet was awesome, and I have also enjoyed several of Kenneth Branagh's films, especially Henry V.

Regardng the anti-semitism of the play, it is anti-Semitic in a modern context - Shylock is basically forced to convert to Christianity, and is really presented as a nasty human being - but in the context of its time, it was probably pretty groundbreaking because you get at least a hint of what Jewish people of the time went through as far as mistreatment, and how someone like Shylock might become embittered against Christians. Shakespeare was ahead of his time in a lot of ways - it's never overt, but you can see strains of an anti-war sentiment, or at least a less deluded outlook toward the reality of war, in Henry V, and King Lear deals with insanity in a way that was a lot more complex and contemplative than most playwrights of his time.