I have been watching so much about Roman entertainment in my Teaching Company course (there are six lectures about arenas and gladiatoral combat) that I got interested in watching this movie again. I picked up the Bluray, and Grayson and I watched the "extended version" start to finish last night. Enjoyed it all over again, with a little better perspective on the Colosseum and the other monuments of Rome. Great performances all - Joaquin Phoenix is just scary, and Connie Nielson is really good (especially at the end when she has no makeup after her family situation has taken a decided turn for the worse, and you notice it because he face is solid freckles - would not have noticed that on regular DVD, but it underscored what had just happened - I think the filmmaker was pointing out subtly that she'd just been raped by her brother). One other thing I could tell this time was the Oliver Scott scenes they had to tweak because he died during filming. I could tell where his face was superimposed on another body, or a cut was too abrupt, or a face didn't sound right. Again, I probably would not have noticed on DVD - on Bluray I think I'd have noticed even if I didn't know they'd done something. Well, probably not - would never have occurred to me it was anything other than a very slightly awkward cut.
The thing that struck me this time was the music - how much it sounds like Holst's Mars, and later Respighi's Pines/Fountains of Rome (not sure which part) and near the end it is nearly note for note Gorecki's Third Symphony. Not that these were bad choices. Just struck me as odd. Anyway, good film. Although I have to point out that according to my Teaching Company professor gladiatoral combat was not the deathtrap the movie assumes - gladiators did not have to kill to win, and the sport placed a value on stopping an opponent in nonlethal, as well as lethal, ways. So it wasn't always as bloody as the movie indicates. At least that's what he claims.