The Merchant of Venice (2004) - 5

The way this film is shot you are constantly waiting for the blood bath to begin, as is the usual for Shakespearean tragedies. As far as I can tell this is actually one of his comedies; justice wins out and there is even some cross-dressing deception (I use the word comedy in its classical sense, it doesn't have any bathroom jokes like most of the movies that we call comedies in our culture). The director takes a lot of liberties with the story by shooting scenes with no dialogue but are still apart of the storytelling. When it comes to Shakespeare the burden of story telling is on the actors, although in film the director has more sway than the actors. I think I still prefer to see Shakespearean plays live. This film does a reasonable job considering the constraints of this medium of film.