SOURCE: Rothwell, Kenneth S. Review of Silent Shakespeare: Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On. … 1899-1911, released by Milestone Film and Video. Shakespeare Quarterly 52, no. 3 (fall 2001): 428-31.

In the following excerpt, Rothwell praises the outdoor settings of the Film d'Arte Italiana silent film version of The Merchant of Venice, but regrets that the film's ending has been lost.

To modernists, Shakespeare in silent movies may seem a laughable oxymoron, but this was not how the European and American filmmakers at the beginning of the twentieth century saw it. Quite the opposite. Putting the plays of William Shakespeare on screen fit their larger design of making a disreputable industry reputable by attracting “the better classes of persons,” who scorned the scruffy nickelodeons and penny gaffs. Seeking excellence, they drew for inspiration on the resources of contemporary theater, even as they strove for some kind of filmic identity. What may...