Every time I see this picture I wonder why he's there at the front (I might be wrong (because they do all kind of look the same), but he's not one of the poets, is he???)
So I started thinking about it. Two things I came up with...
1. To show Keating also impacted the other students. They also care. (Pitts and Knox are the closest from all the poets. Four tables away from Keating. Too far to save him?)
Or.
2. Mr. Boy isn't the focus of this image at all. He's at the FRONT. but in the centre of the image? Trapped between people stepped up on desks. Richard Cameron.
Well, him and Todd. The two opposites. The one that stood the one that sat.
I might be looking too far into it, but, well, I didn't do art class for nothing.
Where some of the other boys (sitting) are holding their head in their hands, tense shoulders, staring down at their desks like looking up would mean giving in. Cameron looks defeated. Unmoving. If you'd cut THIS Cameron out and paste him in a normal class scene, not a thing would change.
He's not thinking about getting up. He's not worrying about whether he should. He knows he's made the decision. This scene might be Todd and Keating's. But this picture? It is Cameron's.