The Merchant of Venice (1908)
- Directed by
- J. Stuart Blackton
- Genre
- silent film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 10 min
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This is a short silent film from 1908. It is the first movie adaptation of William Shakespeare's play about a merchant and a moneylender. The character of Shylock is shown with negative stereotypes.
silentstagedhistoricalstereotypeddramaticsomberearly cinema
What happens
The Merchant of Venice è un cortometraggio muto del 1908 diretto da J. Stuart Blackton. È il primo adattamento cinematografico de Il mercante di Venezia di William Shakespeare. A interpretare il ruolo di Shylock è l'attore americano William V. Ranous, protagonista in quegli anni di numerosi altri tra i primi adattamenti cinematografici delle opere di Shakespeare, inclusi Macbeth, Othello, Richard III e King Lear. Come nel caso di Fagin in Oliver Twist di Charles Dickens, nella rappresentazione dell'ebreo Shylock prevalgono gli aspetti negativi e stereotipati, rispetto alla visione simpatetica che il cinema americano offriva in quegli stessi anni del mercante ebreo del ghetto nei film di Wallace McCutcheon (Old Isaac, the Pawnbroker, 1908) e David W. Griffith (Romance of a Jewess, 1908; A Child of the Ghetto, 1910). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Richard III (1908)
Julius Caesar (1908)
Macbeth (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908)
The Venetian Looking-glass (1905)
A Comedy of Errors (1908)
Her First Adventure (1908)
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.