Brainstorming - Our First Idea

We have been looking at different fairytales that we can turn into a film noir this lesson and we have been trying to find a good one that is not very common. Eliza found one called The Poor Boy in the Grave. Here is an outline of the story:

- There is a foster boy whose parents are both dead

- His foster parents had bad hearts and were greedy with their money and belongings

- The boy therefore ate very little, and was still punished/abused

- One day he had to watch a hen and her chickens, but a hawk flew down and stole the hen

- The boy called out "Thief! Thief! Rascal!" but the hawk didn't return the hen

- The father came out after hearing the yelling and beat the boy as he saw one of the chickens was missing

- The boy then had to take care of the chickens without the hen, which was difficult as they kept running around

- He tied them together so that they couldn't run around anymore, however, the hawk returned and stole them

- When his father saw what happened, he beat the boy so much he couldn't move from his bed for several days

- The father send the boy to a judge, with a basketful of grapes and a letter

- This tormented the boy as he was starving, and he therefore ate two bunches of grapes

- He took the basket to the judge and the judge read the letter and said "Two clusters are wanting"

- The boy confessed he had eaten them because he was starving, and the judge wrote a letter to the father asking for the same amount of grapes again

- The boy ate the two bunches again, took the letter out of the basket and hid it under a stone

- The judge made him explain why the bunches were gone again

- The judge wrote a letter to the father to feed him and teach him right from wrong

- The father gave the boy a task and threatened him with a beating if he did not complete it

- He accidentally cut his coat as well as the straw and was frightened his father might kill him for it and decided he would rather take his own life, than have his father take it

- He drank some poison that they had and said "Folks say death is bitter, but it tastes very sweet to me"

- He sat in a chair waiting to die, however he felt strengthened rather than becoming weaker
- He drank the rest and made his was to the graveyard where he laid himself in a newly dug grave
- He died and after his father found out, he was terrified he'd be brought to justice
- He fainted and his wife ran to aid him with a pan of hot fat
- The flames from the pan spread and lit the house on fire and they were forced to live the rest of their lives in poverty and misery, and suffered from a guilty conscious

This fairytale is really dark so if we chose to use this, we would have to change a couple of aspects so that it wasn't as dark. I think that the line "Folks say death is bitter, but it tastes very sweet to me" would be cool to use in the film if we end up choosing this fairytale.