October 13  2016  49

In the film, as the trial gets under way, 
the bold, outspoken Lipstadt chafes at 
the fact that her attorneys will not let her 
testify, since their strategy is to focus on 
Irving alone. Nor will Holocaust survi-
vors be allowed to give testimony, lest 
Irving  who is representing himself 
 traumatize them further. People will 
say I
m a coward,
 Lipstadt protests when 
she learns she will not be able to take 
the stand. It
s the price [to] pay for win-
ning,
 one of her lawyers replies. 
Lipstadt suffers angst and sleepless 
nights throughout the grueling, three-
month trial.
But her team
s strategy proves correct. 
As Judge Charles Gray reads from his 
verdict, he calls Irving a right-wing, 
pro-Nazi polemicist who persistently 
distorted historical evidence for ideologi-
cal reasons.
In real life, as in the movie, Lipstadt 
was relieved and elated at the verdict. 
But, she said, she nevertheless had trepi-
dations, some years later, when produc-
ers contacted her about turning her book 
Denial into a movie. I said, 
Before I give 
you the green light, you have to under-
stand that this is a film about fighting for 
truth; you can
t pretty it up or fictional-
ize it,

 said Lipstadt, whose latest book, 
Holocaust: An American Understanding, 
was published this summer. 
And they 
heard me very clearly.
 
Screenwriter David Hare (The Reader) 
spent hours with Lipstadt before writing 
his script, which took all its courtroom 
dialogue directly from trial transcripts. 
And Weisz (The Constant Gardener) also 
hung out with the scholar in order to 
absorb her persona.
The actress was drawn to the role, in 
large part, because it was, in the end, 
a very uplifting story about a woman
s 
fight for truth and justice, and a woman 
standing up to a bully,
 Weisz said in 
a telephone interview from New York, 
where she lives with her husband, James 
Bond star Daniel Craig.
Weisz also wanted to play Lipstadt 
for personal reasons: I
m not English, 
after all; my parents were refugees,
 she 
said. Her Jewish-Hungarian father fled 
Budapest with his family around 1938, 
when he was just 7. And her Austrian 
mother, daughter of a Jewish father and 
a Catholic mother, had memories of 
being 5 years old and suddenly neigh-
bors and kids stopped playing with her 
and speaking to her because she was 
half Jewish,
 Weisz said. Her mother
s 
family escaped Vienna to England two 
weeks before Germany
s invasion of 
Austria. Weisz
s mother later converted 
to Judaism before marrying the actress
 
father, a prolific scientific inventor. 
Young Rachel grew up in the shadow 
of her parents
 wartime experiences. 
If you and your family have to leave a 
country, even to find safety, it defines 

who you are for the rest of your days,
 
she said. They talked about it all the 
time; it just became normal to me.

Weisz went on to study English at 
Cambridge University, where she also 
fell in love with acting; she began her 
movie career performing in independent 
films such as Stealing Beauty (1996) and 
burst into stardom with her turn in the 
1999 blockbuster The Mummy, opposite 
Brendan Fraser.
That same year she also performed 
in another film that drew on her Jewish 
heritage: Istvan Szabo
s Sunshine, the 
saga of how anti-Semitism affects three 
generations of a Hungarian-Jewish fam-
ily, including their experiences during 
the time of the Holocaust.
But Weisz hadn
t visited Auschwitz-
Birkenau until she took on the role of 
Lipstadt for Denial. She learned about 
the workings of the camp while read-
ing some of Lipstadt
s books, but was 
not prepared for her emotions as she 
performed scenes outside Auschwitz
s 
perimeter. (Shooting feature films is pro-
hibited inside the former camp.) 
I was struck by the level of industri-
alization  the systematic order and the 
lack of waste in terms of exploiting and 
using every part of the human body,
 she 
said. How incredibly organized it was, 
was very startling.

Interior sections of Auschwitz were 
re-created on a set in England; for the 
scene in which Lipstadt recites the El 
Male Rachamim,
 the Jewish prayer for 
the dead, above a gas chamber, Weisz 
learned to how to say the Hebrew words 
of the Jewish prayer. It had undeniable 
power,
 she said.
In another sequence, set in a camp 
barracks, Weisz passionately argues with 
her lead barrister, who is interested only 
in learning facts that can help him win 
the case and not in memorializing the 
Holocaust. She tartly tells him to show 
some respect for the dead.
Lipstadt, who was on the set at the 
time, recalled that when Weisz finished 
shooting that scene, she said, That 
wasn
t acting.

As for actor Timothy Spall
s portrayal 
of Irving, Weisz said, What he says is 
pretty shocking, but what was brilliant in 
his performance is that he had a certain 
charm. There were moments when I 
almost felt sorry for him.

Weisz said she believes the film is 
especially relevant today, given the 
racially charged rhetoric of presidential 
candidate Donald Trump and the escala-
tion of anti-Semitism in Europe. But she 
disagrees with those who believe the 
verdict against Irving could dampen free 
speech among historians. 
David Irving brought this lawsuit 
against Deborah,
 she said. He was try-
ing to censor her free speech.
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