ng on cue.) It is for her that he actually undertakes the pursuit of the truth of who the traitor was that caused the death of his father, as opposed to in Borges' story where the narrator undertakes the truth for the purposes of his biography. Bertolucci had to take some artistic licenses with character motivations in order to make the movie's pace keep going.Bertolucci also had to fill in the roles of the other conspirators because Borges does not discuss these individuals (other than the one charged with finding out who the traitor was). Bertolucci chooses three simpletons who were basically just sheep that his "hero" directed. In Borges' story, the conspirator who discovered that the "hero" was the traitor is the one who suggests the elaborate scheme to make a martyr of the traitor. But Bertolucci chooses to allow the traitor himself to suggest this conspiracy. This is an interesting and slightly more dramatic choice. Bertolucci kept many of Borges' ideas on the execution of the assassination and the literary ironies that the characters employ. However, he had to explain exactly the method in which the martyr was shot. The shooting takes place in a theater so Bertolucci came up with the idea that the shooter should be on stage. Bertolucci employs one of the simpletons(a singer) to shoot the martyr from stage so as to preserve the mystery of who the shooter could have been. The police could not solve the case, and, as planned, all of the people(including the ex-mistress) believe it to have been a government person.There is a vast difference for the audience in getting the story from the movie or from the book. The story deals more with the semantics of the literary devises that play into the plot. Borges is focused on the irony and the conceptual paradoxes involved, rather than the exact feelings of the characters involved in making this incredible plot come to life. In watching the movie, the audience gets a much bet...
