Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 5 (1912): Shylock Interpreted

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, released in two reels on July 26th, featured most of Thanhouser's leading players and a host of extras and bit players. The offering elicited an essay in The Moving Picture World, July 20, 1912, by Louis Reeves Harrison, a long-winded (or worded) writer who used more verbiage to express a given thought than just about any other reviewer of his time. However, the review of The Merchant of Venice was one of his most insightful:

I was deeply interested in watching this play to see what point of view the director would assume in its production. To many, Shylock is only a Jew whose idea of life is that of gain by unfair means within the law, whereas it is a mistake to assume that Shakespeare had any such idea of the character when he wrote the great drama. The Shylock of Shakespeare's conception was neither comic nor vulgar, but a representative of a great race, and in him was concentrated the wrath of that race turning upon its oppressors.

To understand Shylock let us study Antonio in the light of Mr. Thanhouser's production. Here is a very attractive gentleman who has invested his wealth, like many other Venetians, in ships that sometimes go down at sea. In other words, he took great chances for large profits. He is a man of fine appearance, accustomed to luxury and quite as self-sufficient as is the same type today. A first glimpse of Antonio shows him in the act of insulting the Jew in an act that any sensitive man would resent.

Now Shylock made his money by taking great chances for large profits, and when Antonio comes to him in straits for a loan after treating him worse than he would a dog, the Jew openly tells him that money is his suit, and that the Christian is very unchristianlike when not asking a favor. Antonio, the borrower, taunts back and tells the Jew to lend the money as he would to an enemy from whom he might exact a penalty, and Shylock takes him at his word. He exacts a pound of flesh in a bond and thus risks a fortune to get even with his insultor.

If the story is to be considered possible in any historic age where there were laws to govern and courts to enforce them, it was plain that Shylock took a desperate chance. He evinced his willingness to risk the wealth he had accumulated at many a painful sacrifice in order to destroy a man who spat upon him and exposed him to ridicule. There was small reason to think he could escape with his own life even if the forfeit was paid.

Shylock as a character seems to be the expression of bitter revenge and as such he is hateful to people of enlightenment, but it was man to man in those dark days. He was the injured one; he was older and weaker than Antonio; he was not skilled in arms; he could not fight in the ordinary way on even terms, so he resorted to weapons within his reach. His malevolence in the end became stimulated in the highest pitch by the loss of his daughter and the fortune she stole from his safe. It seems to me that the great dramatist introduced these aggravating circumstances to excuse the Jew's mental condition. It was such as might have caused the reason of a Christian to topple or fall into the insane hate of a paranoiac.

I take it that Shakespeare's own viewpoint was so high and sweeping that he understood humanity hundreds of years ago, as we are just beginning to comprehend it. He knew that mean traits were not entirely racial. He realized that the cultivated Jew could be generous and considerate while the primitive Christian might be out for all there was to be made, irrespective of how it was made within the law. He seemed to realize that, aside from those who dared to break the laws, human nature was much the same the world over.

Back of man's efforts is a common love of power. That power under most all civilized conditions is concentrated in the possession of wealth, which enables one to share results with many who labor, and the road to wealth is all too often that of indifferent morals. Shylock and Antonio are but two types, one less lavish in display than the other, of men that we have with us today. Shakespeare drew them as they were and allowed people of all subsequent ages to sit in judgment, each according to his limitations.

It has seemed to many of us that the great dramatist did more than depict the meanness of wealth as concentrated in Shylock. While it may have been important to lay the onus on the Jew in order to satisfy the people of his time, there are contrasts in force throughout the play with doubtful Christian graces. The Shylocks in our own political game, particularly those in New York City, who drain the blood of our people and retire to Europe to fatten on their graft, are not Jews. The young American heiress who goes abroad and gilds the pretensions of a titled adventurer is rarely a Jewess. On the other hand some American citizens of high cultivations and noble philanthropy are Jews, and it behooves us as friends of the oppressed, bent upon common enlightenment, to break down all racial lines as we are trying to do those of narrow religious interpretation. The best Jews are better Americans. Therefore, let us eliminate prejudice and examine this play from a tolerant viewpoint.

While The Merchant of Venice seems to be strongly directed against usury of any kind, including that of buying small franchises for a few thousand through political corruption, watering the stocks by millions and charging a labor-crushing interest on the difference, the play was actually drawn from a "Story of the Cruel Jew," who entered into a bond with his enemy, of which the forfeit was to be a pound of the enemy's own flesh. This story was one of those intended to picture the ups and downs of human experience. If the man is a Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford, even in the moving picture business, and seeks to rise by unfair methods, a secret force will be set in motion which will bring him down to a realization of where he stands among the rest of us. Herein lies the leading dramatic element in the play.

It may not appear that Antonio responds to modern ideas of heroism. He violates our sense of justice by heaping indignities upon an old man so enfeebled as to be completely at the mercy of his gross insults, but he is essential as he stands. He brings out Shylock's triumph and subsequent retribution. This retribution is caused by Shylock's appeal to the law as much as by Portia's ingenious argument. He adheres to the letter of the law and it is this which defeats him. He refuses delayed payment when it is offered, even three times the amount, and having done this in open court is denied one ducat of the loan when Portia says he may have his pound of flesh conditioned upon the shedding of no Christian blood. The moral of the principal tale is that we may seek justice by fair means, but any use of the instruments of justice for personal vengeance is likely to kick back like an overloaded gun.

The minor story, like that of the three caskets, is also an old fable skillfully converted by the great playwright to his uses. Portia has three suitors, one a barbarian prince, who considers himself a half-divine; one a French nobleman, who leans heavily on his ancestry, and Bassanio, who truly loves her. For these she provides three caskets, one of gold, one of silver, one of lead, and she tests her suitors by letting them chose among themselves. The caskets bear three inscriptions: "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire," "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves," and "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath."

The prince chooses the one of gold, Aragon the one of silver, respectively from greed and the desire to be unique, while Bassanio, being anxious to show what he will risk for love, selects the casket of lead, which makes him worthy of Portia. Visible moral: "Appearances are deceitful." Second moral (of doubtful value): "Women think a great deal of appearances."

The production is given with the following cast: Shylock (William J. Bowman), Jessica, his daughter (Mignon Anderson), Portia (Flo LaBadie), Bassanio (Harry Burnham [sic]), Antonio (William Russell). The types are all well chosen, the men being especially good, but Portia lacks response of manner and is entirely too gay in a moment when her lover's [sic; actually her lover's friend's] life is at stake. She displays little of that fullness of power which enabled Portia to extend protection to those less able to care for themselves in a trying emergency. She should have been forced to contrast with Jessica. The latter's act in stealing her father's ducats and jewels is possibly introduced to indicate why he should be deeply affected and feel that the whole world is against him, but her weakness affords the opportunity for Portia to show her strength instead of her pretty teeth and dimples on the eve of a horrible tragedy.

The interior settings are as near perfect as they could be made - even Shylock's iron chest of ancient design is a real one - and the exteriors are a delightful surprise. It would be impossible to reproduce Venice in any part of this country, but the palace is superb and so appropriate that I noticed a pretty Italian garden over the walls in one scene. Deep scenes at the masque are a delightful relief. The characters are well posed in several of the interiors where studio limitations make it difficult to handle any number of people in action.

The general conception of the play is correct, and it affords me pleasure to say so. It opens as a comedy and ends as one, with Shylock's dark mental working injected in the middle. The great poet-playwright clearly appreciated the absurdity of the pound of the flesh and that the three caskets would not hold in pure tragedy, so he peopled his story with characters that make no strain on credulity. Whether to credit Mr. Thanhouser or his director or both I am in doubt, but I must compliment the ruling spirit for the delightful and scholarly interpretation.