The Merchant of Venice (2004 film) The Merchant of Venice (2004 film) The Merchant of Venice is a 2004 romantic drama film based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. It is the first full-length sound film in English of Shakespeare's playother versions are videotaped productions which were made for television, including John Sichel's 1973 version and Jack Gold's 1980 BBC production. The title character is the merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons), not the Jewish moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino) who is the more prominent character. This adaptation follows the text, but omits much. Director Michael Radford believed that Shylock was Shakespeare's first great tragic hero who reaches
Hamlet's Father Hamlet is sent to Hell for the harm he's caused and will be with his father for eternity. Orson Scott Card has modernized other Shakespeare plays, including "The Taming of the Shrew", "The Merchant of Venice", and "Romeo and Juliet", "so that modern audiences can understand them instantly and easily while still remaining "[sic]" all the flavor of blank verse in Elizabethan English." In his foreword to the "Hamlet's Father", Card says that he could never identify with Hamlet: "I have little interest in a dithering hero; nor am I much inspired by revenge plots." He wrote the story in