The Merchant of Venice "play Antonio as gay". Joseph Fiennes, however, who plays Bassanio, encouraged a homoerotic interpretation and, in fact, surprised Irons with the kiss on set, which was filmed in one take. Fiennes defended his choice, saying "I would never invent something before doing my detective work in the text. If you look at the choice of language … you'll read very sensuous language. That's the key for me in the relationship. The great thing about Shakespeare and why he's so difficult to pin down is his ambiguity. He's not saying they're gay or they're straight, he's leaving it up to his
The Merchant of Venice (1969 film) or near Malaga, Spain (different takes may have been taken in each of these places), and some of these can be seen in the documentary "Orson Welles: The One Man Band" (1995), along with clips from the first third of "The Merchant of Venice". Welles left all his materials from his incomplete film projects, including this one, to Oja Kodar, and she in turn donated these materials to the Munich Filmmuseum, which created the compilation "Orson Welles's Shylock" in 2001, integrating the first eight minutes of the film, and the Shylock-in-a-trenchcoat footage later shot by Welles. Additional elements are at