The Lottery

Plot

I picture the plot of the lottery going a lot like it did in the short story. It would definitely leave the fact that it is a . . . different kind of lottery very ambiguous until the end but I think there would need to be a little more build up. I would probably have it start with a random family and their day before the lottery and have them allude to the lottery in all kinds of round about ways. Then I would have it do this with 2 or 3 more families telling there story because I think that it would make the ending scene a lot more intense if you knew who the people who were going to be involved in the lottery. The actual drawing and scene involving the lottery would definitely be the longest, I kind of picture they’re being the presentation before the lottery and random people would be drawing and it would kind of go in and out of its focus from the people drawing and the families that were introduced. In the end I think that right after the final drawing you would finally find out that the lottery wasn’t for money, it was for who to be killed but then all of the hints would become much more apparent. I also picture a very abrupt ending with the children closing in around the lady who is to be stoned and right before she dies it goes black and you hear her scream. Kind of crazy but I think that would be a cool ending.

Point of View

The point of view would definitely have to change. I would go to third person omniscient I think that would allow a lot more freedom in the plot and in the movie in general. It wouldn’t really be possible to have the different families introduced from the point of view of one person but maybe the point of view could kind of change from one person to another. Like it starts out as a family member in one of the families and then they somehow come into interaction with another person from a different family and the point of view would change. I don’t know how it could change though, I wouldn’t want it to be awkward but if it could work I think it would be kind of cool like maybe some kind of common theme that causes the POV to change like something that happened every time right before the POV switched. I don’t know though I wouldn’t want it to be cheesy or awkward that would ruin the intensity of the movie.

Characterization

The characterization would probably be somewhat ambiguous. I would want the audience to know these peoples lives but not fully. Maybe at the lottery when the camera is going from family to family they could be having flashbacks of bad things they have done in their lives. They could range from small things to maybe like something really bad and it could allude to the really bad guy winning the lottery and the audience would be kind of mad but then they would realize that the lottery isn’t for money and it will all be clear. This would play right into the THEME.



Setting

The setting wouldn’t be too terribly important. It would just need to be a small town that’s pretty close. Other than that I don’t really know what would be necessary. I think it’s obvious that it should be warm outside since it wouldn’t make sense for it to be cold. The place should probably be southern too, it just seems like it’s more likely for there to be a small radically different southern town than a northern one. Maybe there should be a lot of guys with confederate flags and other things such as that. Really though, setting isn’t that important, just like in the short story. It’s more of a plot based story.


Theme

Ahh the theme I think this story could share a valuable theme in an awesome way. I mentioned earlier that the guy or girl who had committed a terrible crime, ooohh another thought, maybe it’s a not punishable by law like he has a really nice wife and when you meet them in the beginning they seem like a really perfect family and his flashback is of his affair he’s having with some girl, that would be awesome, anyway though, the guy would win the lottery and the audience would think that justice would not be served but after they learned what the lottery really was they would see that even if the justice that is served isn’t apparent it is still served.