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
Spelling of Shakespeare's name (1602) and the second of "King Lear" (1619). The name printed at the end of the poem "The Phoenix and the Turtle", which was published in a collection of verse in 1601, is hyphenated, as is the name on the title page of "Shake-speares Sonnets" (1609). It is used in the cast list of Ben Jonson's "Sejanus His Fall", and in six literary allusions published between 1594 and 1623. The un-hyphenated spelling "Shakespeare" (or Shakeſpeare, with a long s) appears on 22 of the 58 quartos. It is spelled this way in the first quartos of "The Merchant of Venice"