Describe an important idea in the text and explain how at least TWO of the following were used to help you understand this idea.
Colour Sound Effects Camera Work
Music Dialogue Lighting
Costumes Special Effects
In the movie The Merchant of Venice, directed by Michael Radford, an important idea is hypocrisy and duplicity. There was a lot of hypocrisy and duplicity in olden day Venice, which is where most of the film is set. The idea of hypocrisy and duplicity was mainly portrayed by the sophisticated Christians, in contrast to the lowly Jews and prostitutes. The film techniques that helped me to understand this idea the most were colour, costumes, and lighting.
Colour was very efficiently used in the movie, especially the colour red. Red was worn by a lot of people and showed up in a lot of places, but what I found most effective was that the prostitute’s gowns and the Christian priest’s robes were both red. This shows that people who practiced usury, Jews, were frowned upon because it was against Christian religion however; everyday Christians went to the brothel to cavort with prostitutes. This was against the Christian religion aswell. Also, as Antonio was signing the bond, the wax poured for the seal is red and so are the judges’ robes in the end court scene. This shows that even though Antonio signed the bond and he was legally bound to uphold it, he still goes to court to plead with the judges to get out of it. This shows that there is a lot of hypocrisy in Venice and the colour red helps me to see it.
Another thing that illustrates to me the amount of duplicity is costuming. The masks that the Christians wear speak volumes about their character. The masks are the Christians tools to doing whatever they like in the nighttime and getting away with it all in the daytime. Whenever a Christian wants to do something out of line or something not allowed by the church, all they have to do is put on the mask and they are somebody else; they and their deeds...