This scene is during the first gladiatorial battle after he is captured. He teams up with another slave and they begin to work together to avoid their deaths. Russell Crowe's face in this scene shows determination, courage, and hidden anger deep down. His stance also indicates that he is in defensive mode and is ready to attack. His partner has a more frightened look, as he is backed up more behind Crowe and has a scrunched up face. This also puts Crowe in a dominate position, as he is in the front of the two.
Nice job on the blocking (position to each other and within the frame) of the two characters. "He teams up with another slave," though, sounds as if Maximus and Draba were working as a team voluntarily. Didn't you notice the chains?
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that might be worth mentioning is how neither one are in the middle of the shot, but not completely out of scene. This indicates even though chained they are working together willingly compared to the other pair with Hagen and the other random slave. That duo Hagen completely throws his "partner" around and is off screen most of the time until Hagen pulls him to be a human shield and leads to the weaker slaves death.
ReplyDeleteGreat comment, Paul! Not surprisingly, Hagen, the gladiator trainer, later acts similarly selfish. He is one of the gladiators that refuses to listen to Maximus' shouts to stay together when the sickle chariots attack them, and thus gets hurt. He does survive, though, and later shows he's come around to Maximus' side when he plays the pre-taster for his beans (even if he then makes a funny show of it).
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