Welles of Empathy

Watching the special program about Orson Welles' theater work at Film Forum last night, I was struck by the degree of Welles' fascination with Shylock. The presentation included excerpts from several different performances of Welles as the iconic character from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, from a 1938 Mercury Theater radio recording to the many attempts the actor made to film himself doing the "Hath not a Jew" monologue in the late Sixties and early Seventies.

Although Welles experimented with different voices for the role (most notably an incongruous but remarkably well-executed Tevye accent), his basic expression and intonation remained the same over the years. The monologue begins:

"He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew."

In every performance, there were two phrases to which Welles gave the most powerful emphasis. One was, "scorned my nation," which he intoned with a bitter disgust. The other, into which he put all the breathtaking intensity that his notoriously earth-shaking voice could command, was, "I am a Jew."

Seeing Welles say, "I am a Jew," over and over, in so many different clips, I realized that I cannot imagine Mel Gibson performing that monologue.

I know that Gibson's supporters believe that there is nothing he could do at this point to convince people that he and his movie are not anti-Semitic, and perhaps they are right. But I for one would be impressed if, instead of saying, "I killed Jesus," as he has, he would instead say, "I am a Jew." Slowly. Deliberately. Over and over, in a multitude of settings and wardrobe changes, over a period of years. Just like Orson Welles.

But I'd be satisfied to hear him say it just once like he means it—which, since he's a traditionalist Catholic, he really should. After all, it fits right in with his replacement theology.


2:14 AM