August Rosenbluth

Always in third person

Hands: He has well-groomed hands with clean nails. He's not a manual laborer, and it shows. However, these same hands are capable of brutal violence when his mask slips.

Posture and gestures: He maintains a perfectly straight back. His gestures are often restrained and elegant. He might even allow himself to rest his foot on the table in his train car—a gesture that is both relaxed and demonstrative of his authority.

Smoking Pipe: In some scenes he smokes a pipe, which adds to his image as a reflective, intelligent, but at the same time somewhat old-fashioned and dangerous man.

August is the most stylish man in the circus. While everyone else wears practical, shabby clothes, he looks like he just stepped out of an expensive boutique. His wardrobe is the attire of Depression-era power and success.

Suits: He wears perfectly tailored three-piece suits made of high-quality fabrics (tweed, wool). Even on the road, his jackets, vests, and trousers look impeccable.

Vests: The vest is his signature look. He's almost never seen without one. These are often bright, sometimes even slightly eccentric vests (striped or patterned), emphasizing his showman status and self-confidence.

Accessories: All his clothes are completed with perfect accessories:

Tie: Silk tie, always impeccably tied.

Watch on a chain: A classic accessory that he wears on his vest, highlighting his respectability and attention to detail.

Wedding Ring: Wears this, which is an important detail for his image as Marlene's "perfect husband."

Shoes: Leather shoes, polished to a shine, which is another contrast to the dirt and sawdust of the arena.

Augustus' face is his main instrument and the mirror of his soul.

Shape and features: He has an expressive face with clear lines. His features can be described as aristocratic and refined: a high forehead, a straight nose, and a clearly defined chin.

Smile: This is the key element of his image. His smile is dazzling, but completely insincere. It's wide, revealing even white teeth, but almost never reaches his eyes. This smile is a mask he wears for the public, for deals, for manipulation. It's simultaneously charming and frightening, because the viewer senses the falseness. Eyes: Christoph Waltz's eyes, playing Augustus, are a performance in themselves. They can instantly change expressions:

In a calm state: The look is penetrating, assessing, cold.

When smiling: The eyes remain cold and observing, creating an eerie dissonance.

In Anger: This is the most terrifying transition. The pupils constrict, the gaze becomes icy, piercing, and insane. All kindness vanishes in a split second, revealing an abyss of rage and cruelty. Hair: August's hair is dark (the color of bitter chocolate), with gray at the temples. It is always perfectly styled with brilliantine—a perfect shine and a neat coiffure, even in the heat and dust of circus life. This symbolizes his desire for control and order, his rejection of the chaos that surrounds him.

August Rosenbluth is a man in his prime (presumably between 40 and 50). He doesn't have a muscular build, but he's trim, composed, and carries himself with unwavering confidence. His movements are often smooth and calculated, like those of a predator, but in moments of anger, they become abrupt and impetuous. He's of medium to short stature, but his poise and charisma always make him seem dominant in any space.

At first, August appears to be a kind and compassionate man who helps his employees and the animals in his circus perform brilliantly. However, this is merely a façade of his true nature—that of a mentally unstable psychopath who places strict limits on what he can and cannot achieve in his circus. August is also extremely cruel to both his colleagues and the circus animals, severely punishing them if any disappoint him, even going so far as to deliberately throw them off trains to avoid paying them. He considers animal suffering insignificant compared to human suffering. It is also believed that he married Marlina only for her beauty, not out of true love.

Jacob continues to train Rosie, and August notices that Jacob and Marlena are spending more time together and worries that Jacob might steal Marlena or her wealth along with him.

On the eve of Rosie's important performance, August cruelly bullies Jacob, forcing him to kiss Marlena right in front of him. Marlena, realizing August is jealous, tells him she'll never leave him. August replies that for a woman like her, it's just a habit. She slaps him, and he slaps her back, prompting Jacob to attack August until he's pulled away by his henchmen.

Afterward, Marlena warns Jacob that she overheard Augustus and his men discussing a plan to trip Jacob on the red light from the bridge, and Jacob convinces her to escape with him. They hide in a hotel, where they make love, but Augustus's henchmen track them down and take Marlena away, while Blackie brutally beats Jacob. Jacob returns to the circus and sneaks into Augustus's room to kill him, but retreats when Marlena, her eyes black, awakens and silently waves him away. The next day, Marlena tells Jacob that Augustus set fire to many men during the night, including Walter and Camel instead of Jacob. Both died when they ran into rocks.

During the performance, several employees, fed up with August's cruelty, open all the animal cages, causing mass panic in the tent. Jacob tries to reach Marlena, but August attacks him, turning his rage on Marlena and strangling her when she tries to stop him. Rosie, tired of August's abuse, comes to Marlena's aid and strikes her over the head with an iron stake, killing her. Only Jacob witnessed Rosie kill August.

August becomes both a trainer and a ringmaster for the Benzini brothers' circus.

When Jacob arrives on the circus train, August hires Jacob as a veterinarian, primarily to help Silver, the lead horse, with his laminitis. August tasks Jacob with nursing Silver back to health and keeping him performing for as long as possible. Ultimately, Jacob is unable to cure Silver and shoots the horse to put him out of his misery. August is displeased with Jacob's decision and threatens to throw him off the train, or as he calls it, "give him the red light," but decides against it, as Jacob potentially saved Marlena from injury by merely warning him if he fails again. Jacob asks August why he's so committed to keeping the animals in working condition despite their condition, to which August replies that animal suffering isn't as intense as human suffering.

Then August finds Rosie, an Asian elephant, as a replacement for the show's star, and entrusts Jacob with training her. That same evening, August invites Jacob into his car for dinner, and watching August dance with Marlena, Jacob realizes he's being overly possessive.

Rosie proves untrainable, and August hits her with a boat hook. In her debut show, Rosie panics and runs away, causing Marlena to twist her ankle while jumping from a high pole. Once Jacob rescues her, August furiously attacks Rosie for hurting his wife and brutally beats her, leaving Jacob and Marlena in despair. Afterward, August complains to Jacob that he spent most of the circus's salary on an elephant that was impossible to train, and is now deeply in debt because he can't pay the workers until he sells more tickets.

While tending to Rosie's wounds, Jacob discovers she only understood Polish commands. After this, Rosie begins performing flawlessly, which restores the circus's popularity.