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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