The Merchant of Venice

[pegkerr]

I do believe that the slashiest thing I've seen in the movies all year is the the relationship between Antonio (Jeremy Irons) and Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) in The Merchant of Venice. Comments? Anyone else seen it? What did you think?

Comments

[franticgoddess.livejournal.com]

LJ surfer here, who just got back from seeing that (rather enjoyed it btw), and holy GOD yes. Slashtastical :D

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

Buh? Guh? Where is this showing? Where did you see it? My buddy Darren and I have been waiting for months for this to show up in Minnesota. I'll crawl out of bed bleary-eyed and runny-nosed if I have to.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Edina theater! Let me know what you think if you see it.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

We've been doing Al Pacino/Shylock shticks ever since we saw the trailer!

"A pound of flesh, motherfucker, a pound of flesh! Deny me this, then say hello to my little friend!"

[dofpw.livejournal.com]

Shall we make Edina our destination?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but I don't think it counts as slash if it was Shakespeare's intent that there be some chemistry there. Maybe it's one of those Ernie and Bert urban legends, but I've never heard of a scholar who denied that Anonio wanted to get it on with Bassanio.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lindsay_/]

Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines. I think the national theatre production set in 1930s Germany draws that out a little better than the Royal Shakespeare production, but at the end of the Royal Shakespeare Antonio is just alone on the stage when all the other happy couples have left and it's just intense, because he's as ruined as SHylock in a way.

When I've studied this play we talked a lot about the relationsip between the stigma attached to being Jewish and gay at the time the play was written. Because being gay was (literally) unspeakable and Jews had to practice underground in England, so this is a play that has a Jew and a gay man accepted and those facets ignored (Jessica and Antonio). We also talked about the irony of someone like Francis Bacon skewering the late Dr. Lopez (hung for "treason", suspected Jew) for hiding himself when Bacon was in the closet! Ah, SHakespeare!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lotuseater/]

Yeah, I definitely saw some slash-worthy material there.

[kate_nepveu]

I've seen reviews that suggested it was canon not slash. I haven't read the play, though, or studied it, so I can't say.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Does it count as slash if it's canon? I was always under the impression that Antonio has a (probably) unrequited passion for Bassanio, and I believe that interpretation has been very frequently used in performance.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

As Quentin Tarantino says about Top Gun, this is not subtext, this is text.

Papersky and I were discussing this on the way out of the movie and ended up concluding that this kind of falling for mercenary young men who take advantage of him makes sense as a bad relationship pattern for Antonio, as he later falls for Sebastian in exactly the same way and ends up in prison over it.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

It isn't text to have him agree to lend him the money actually in bed.

But yeah.

It's also terribly sad at the end, I thought. I also very much liked Portia's face on hearing about how much her husband loves Antonio. I thought that really worked.

[morganmuffle]

Saw it and I agree totally. So very slashy. Interestingly if you read interviews with JI and JF they disagree. JF thought the relationship was slashy (well he didn't say that, he said he thought they might have been lovers in the past) but JI was pretty definate that it was just a very deep and loving friendship. I can see both points in the abstract but watching the film I've got to say I thought there was something going on.

Is it on in lots of cinemas in the US? Over here it was only on in a very few places (had to go into London and pay a horrendously inflated price though it was worth it).

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It's on a limited engagement--I think I read somewhere it was opening in only six cities or so.

[volkhvoi.livejournal.com]

So far as I am aware, it is canon, played played more or less overtly or ambiguously depending on the production. It was certainly there in the stage version I saw at the Chichester festival a few years ago.

Trevor Nunn's stage version (Olivier Theatre, 2000) is, I have heard, considered definitive, and is out on dvd should anyone want a comparison.

Slashable stuff...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

...with guys in tights (Actually, that's an assumption on my part.)

*THMPDT!"

I have just swooooooooooooned.