Shylock

Hatred of Jews goes back 2,000 years. It has been embedded in theology and its flames have been fanned by malicious folklore, culminating with the near destruction of European Jewry. And for the last 400 years, the weight of Western attitudes towards Jews has been borne by Shakespeare's Shylock, the moneylender who appears in only five scenes in The Merchant of Venice. He is the murderous, treacherous Jew who seeks a pound of flesh as payment on a loan. Devil or buffoon, Shylock reflects the deepest fears of the cultures in which he appears. There were no Jews in Elizabethan England, but plenty of English money-lenders; usury, an English problem, becomes Shylock's crime. Pierre Lasry's brilliant film weaves together startling performances by Sir Laurence Olivier, Dustin Hoffman and rare footage from Orson Welles' unfinished Merchant of Venice, with insightful commentary from directors, historians and writers. This film was shot on location in Stratford-upon-Avon, Venice, Vancouver, Montreal and New York.