Discussions of anti-semitism were rife this time last year, as Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ neared its release date and critics questioned whether its portrayal of Jews was not excessively negative and stereotypical. Ultimately, those worries were about as valid as the counterarguments. There was enough evidence in the film to keep its fans and the detractors sufficiently and uneventfully polarized. It is a rift that will not likely be deep enough to endure, for the film, in spite of whatever merits it might have, is not a great work of art; nor is Gibson a great artist. It does not fulfill the necessary criteria for longstanding controversy, the way William Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice does; its qualities are not worth centuries' worth of defense.

I don't imagine director Michael Radford, the director of the new - and indeed, first - film version of The Merchant Of Venice, would wish all discussions of his adaptation to immediately breach the topic of anti-semitism, but I don't imagine he doesn't expect it either. It's the very reason the play, while one of Shakespeare's most renowned, has been virtually untouched by Hollywood (although it actually produced multiple times during the silent era), and it's one of the faults Radford has attempted to rectify in bringing the story to the screen. For the most part, he's succeeded; this is a frequently magnificent and stirring drama, crafted in such a way that the source material often seems writ for the screen, rather than the stage. But, of course, he doesn't entirely transcend the source material (and nor should he), which leaves him open to the play's faults, which, as I see it, are twofold. His approach corrects one of them; unfortunately, it amplifies the other.

The first problem is simply that The Merchant Of Venice is, in fact, quite guilty of the same stereotyping that Gibson was accused of; but the play was written in the 16th Century, when those precise types were propagated widely, and so the debate thus comes down to whether or not Shakespeare himself was anti-semitic, and whether he wrote the play partially as a criticism of intolerance, or whether he was simply fallible to the social norm. That the answer is not clear is a testament to The Bard's empathy (for were he not empathetic, the play would be obviously and detrimentally one-sided) and subtlety (for were he not subtle, there would be no need for debate at all), but I think the latter case is the correct one. The caricaturistic dimensions of Shylock in the play are unfortunate in the same manner of D.W. Griffith's treatment of the Klu Klux Klan in Birth Of A Nation, but they are an incidental indictment of the times moreso than the artist. Griffith, of course, recognized his error, and later even attempted to make amends with his epic Intolerance; I'd like to think that Shakespeare had the same sense of moral hindsight.

In a sense, Radford is absolving him with this film. He precedes the story with an on-screen text explaining the treatment of the Jews in 16 Century Europe - treatment that was not entirely different from the initial separative actions of the the Nazi party. He follows this with a scene only alluded to in the play, in which the titular merchant Antonio, a Christian, spits in the face of Shylock on the Rialto bridge in the midst of a violent demonstration against the Jews. These two additions on Radford's part practically defuse any negative slant that would otherwise be present, and do much to humanize Shylock; they provide a context for his raging sense of injustice in a way that an allusion in a monologue could not; when it comes time for Shylock's own famous speech - the grand "If you prick us..." oratory, an example of Shakespeare at his very best - it has a powerful culiminatory sense to it. It does more now than add much needed humanity to Shylock; it represents his breaking point.

It should be noted that the speech, as delivered by Al Pacino, is an example of where Shakespeare's language and the cinematic medium achieve perfect harmony. But Radford seems aware that what is necessary on stage is not always equally requisite in the film, and so he's liberally edited the text, removing expository passages that would do in the theater what a close up could do just as well (if not better, or at least with a simpler sort of grace) on film. He aims for a sense of seamy realism, and achieves it. Furthermore, he directs the actors to speak the dialogue in a series of hushed whispers and muttered asides, without a sense of the pentameter; in other words, as naturally imperfect dialogue instead of poetry. And then there's the city of Venice itself, where much of the film was actually shot. Radford utilizes it not as a backdrop but as an environment, full of very palpable sense of inhabitation and grime (and, it being a port town, sex); much of the opening sequences of the film are free of dialogue and establish the characters in the context of the city.

It is this realistic approach that ultimately reveals - and exacerbates - the play's other chief flaw: that surrounding the drama of Shylock's rage and his attempt at bloody recompense is a romantic comedy of errors in the vein of Twelfth Night and Love's Labour Lost. The flirtatious courtship of Antonio's young friend Bassiano and the aristocratic Portia is charming and witty, but why did Shakespeare let it evolve from a subplot into the defining factor of the play's climax? More to the point: why must Shylock be defeated by scarcely credible logical trick presented by a girl disguised as a boy? Could he not this rich and flawed character be gratified with a more suitable comeuppance, and could not Shakespeare have let the drama play out without resorting to his oft-used device of cross-dressing deceit? Perhaps it was his producers, foisting commercial suggestions upon him in an attempt to draw larger crowds; or perhaps Shakespeare simply made a mistake.

Again, the nature of theater in the 16 Century, as well as the fact that the work is in fact a play, are astute arguments in the play's favor. But in the cinematic environment Radford has established in his film, it simply, blatantly, does not work; that the gorgeous Portia could fool a court of Venetian magistrates, and her own fiancee, with a false mustache, is not a plot development benefitted by close-ups. Radford begins the film with an emphasis on the tragic that is not soluble with the farcical note on which, by remaining true to the play, he cannot help but end.

And he was, of course, right to remain true to the play. I do not think his approach was wrong. The Merchant Of Venice is a flawed work, and any attempt to produce it, on film or stage, will only serve to reveal its imperfection. But what it will also do -and which is far more important, and which is why this film is ultimately a success - is cast Shakespeare's brilliance against his own fallibility. Such dichotomy is invaluable, when a great artist is concerned. Radford has adjusted the contrast slightly, and in doing so he's clarified where Shakespeare went wrong and provided proof enough as to why those errors have been, are and will continue to be worth contesting.