One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Last night I watched (or tried to watch) the 2004 film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. On the face of it, it seemed like a very promising proposition: a modern, big budget adaptation with all the bells and whistles, along with a stellar cast including Jeremy Irons as Antonio, Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio, and (most intriguingly) Al Pacino as Shylock. I must say, however, that this movie was extraordinarily boring and I was sleeping by Act IV. Also, Pacino’s performance was not good…it seemed stilted and just off, like he was sleepwalking through the part, uninterested and wooden, as if he were reading his lines for the first time, right off of a teleprompter. So, a no go on that one. A nonstarter. I think it is interesting (or maybe just interesting to me) that I really liked reading this play and disliked the movie version but, for Love’s Labor’s Lost, I disliked reading the play but loved the film version. Obviously, different forms take different things to make them work.