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The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first...

The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first full-length sound film version in English of Shakespeare's play; most other versions are videotaped productions made for television. There had been a British early sound nine-minute short subject production of the trial scene in 1927, with Lewis Casson as Shylock and Sybil Thorndike (Casson's wife) as Portia. The 2004 "Merchant of Venice" follows the text very closely, only missing lines here and there. The director, Michael Radford, believed that Shylock was Shakespeare's first tragic hero, who reaches a catastrophe due to his own flaws: thus the film does not show Shylock purely as a villain, but partly also as a victim. It begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the bigoted Christian population of Venice. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto. The principal roles are Al Pacino as Shylock the Jew, Jeremy Irons as Antonio the merchant, Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio and Lynn Collins as Portia. Other