There was a debate on the BBC this morning asking Is there more truth in Shakespeare than the Bible? during which it was agreed that it was vital to keep his art “alive” for “modern” audiences with fresh perspectives such as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.
Now the same can be said for silent film – a seemingly
far more “fixed” text but one that can reveal more of itself when accompanied
live by a specialist accompanist such as Stephen Horne. Today Stephen was
musically re-contextualizing a German film interpreting a Shakespeare play set in
Venice and filmed actually in Venice.
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| The view from the Rialto Bridge... |
One of the striking things about Shakespeare is how his
very English works have spread beyond their linguistic home to Europe
and beyond: it takes a playwright of immense ability to succeed beyond translation
– Chekov, Ibsen, Molière all play across Europe but our Will is still in a league of his own. His plays originally drew from
European history and culture and so it’s perhaps not too surprising that, for
example, a Dane, Asta Nielsen, was so keen on playing Hamlet – history aside,
the universality of themes and the sheer precision of Shakespearean narrative
made for perfect connection in any language.
What appealed to director/producer/writer Peter Paul
Felner about The Merchant of Venice? It’s
a play about more than just Jewish money-lending and in the wrecked economics
of Weimar Germany, the power of the “bond” to destroy lives would have been an
all-too pertinent theme. There are also themes of love thwarted by class divide
as well – one character lends money to impress his love who later claims that
her love cannot be bought… only earned.
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| Henny Porten |
Then there are religious divides, ones which never go
away, a Jewish girl is promised to another of her religion under an arrangement
made by their fathers, but she loves a Christian and has to find a way to
breach her cultural containment.
It all sounds very modern and Stephen played with passion
and impeccable timing to bring out the full flavour of this still potent cocktail
of money, love and hate.
The film was re-christened The Jew of Mestri for its
release in the US and this was the copy we watched, apparently two reels short
of the full German version. The opening titles gave credit for the story to
John of Florence (Giovanni Fiorentino) who wrote a similar tale two centuries
before Shakespeare. The story doesn’t quite go as the William of Warwickshire later told
it but that was undoubtedly the original source material for the film even
though, as the introductory text has it, alterations were added to suit modern
standards of “good taste”.
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| Werner Krauss as a Shylock shorn of sanity |
Werner Krauss makes for an excellent Shylock/ Jew of
Mestri, with a brand of extreme physicality that reminded me of Emil Jannings:
almost exhausting to watch but a man worn down to his limits by grief, loss and
a need to exact his pound of flesh. In this context, Shylock is clearly beyond
his wit’s end and having lost wife and daughter to death and Christianity respectively,
has nowhere to go but despair.
The film starts with his daughter Rebecca but really Jessica
played by the striking Lia Eibenschütz falling in love with the Christian Lorenzo
– one of the local high-powered likely lads but with a heart of gold. Shylock
promises her hand to the son his friend Tubal (Albert Steinrück) but, amidst
the celebrations no one notices Jessica’s desolation.
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| Harry Liedtke as Bassanio |
Lorenzo is a friend of Bassanio (Harry Liedtke) a playboy
of good humour and plenty of bad debt who relies heavily on his wealthy pal, Antonio
(Carl Ebert), the merchant of Venice.
Bassanio encounters heiress Portia (Weimar superstar Henny
Porten) and is quickly robbed of his wanderlust and a desire to settle down.
Antonio offers to help him look wealthy so that he can match Portia’s social
station and all is going well until Antonio’s ships start sinking…
Before that, there’s an tragic confrontation between the
boys and Shylock’s mother (one of those “new” characters) who has a fatal heart
attack after berating Antonio for his interest-free loans (that was Shylock’s
concern in the play – he had to lower his rates…)
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| Carl Ebert is the Merchant! |
There’s very bad blood between the men and so when
Antonio needs to borrow money until his remaining vessels make it to port to
recover his losses, Shylock takes full advantage with an interest-free loan
that has one main condition in the event of a default: he must have a pound of
flesh…
Only unlikely misfortune can endanger the deal and so it
comes to pass as the remainder of Antonio’s fleet goes missing and all is set
for the classic court room climax – Antonio will be noble, Shylock will be
deranged and, of course, girls will be boys with years of legal training behind
them…
No doubt the film would benefit from the exposition of
those extra reels but it still works… with good performances all round and even
Max Schreck as “Der Doge von Venedig” – you’d hardly know it was the Count at
all.
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| Al fresco sewing |
The cinematography of Axel Graatkjaer and Rudolph Maté is
high standard and makes the most of the outstanding location: it’s hard to go
wrong in Venice and it’s fun location-spotting from the market on the Rialto
Bridge (still there if a little to the left) to the Bridge of Sighs, Piazza San
Marco and the Doge’s Palace.
I haven’t seen the play since Dustin Hoffman came across
to London in 1989 – itself a mix of film star and classic theatre - so I’m not
too clear on the pure version but the film showed again how malleable the Merchant is helped enormously by next context of the music.
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