In the 1980s Britain saw the rise of the right wing historians. Maybe the study of history has always been subjective, they say it is rewritten by the victors.
Now we had right wingers getting increased media airtime to push their agenda. A period where David Irving's reputation would initially flourish as he was the first to denounce the Stern magazine's publication of the Hitler Diaries as forgeries.
Denial based on true events is adapted by David Hare and directed by Mick Jackson, his return to the BBC after almost 30 years.
American historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) calls David Irving (Timothy Spall) out as a Holocaust denier in a publication. He sues her and her publisher for libel in the English courts. The reason being the burden of proof lies with the accused and the amount of damages were high in England.
Lipstadt had no problems raising funds in America to mount a defence and she employed top lawyers to defend her. Andrew Julius (Andrew Scott) the solicitor dealing with the day to day handling of the case and Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) the barrister who would argue the case in court.
The film has to explain the English legal system and has a narrative of Lipstadt being passionate, wanting to bring survivors of the Holocaust to court to give evidence. She gets short shrift from her lawyers who wanted to prepare for the case dispassionately and methodically.
I think the film downplayed the smart move Julius pulled in getting Irving to agree to the case being tried by a Judge alone and not by a jury. The trial judge Charles Gray (Alex Jennings) had been a noted libel lawyer himself in real life.
The lawyers for Lipstadt had to prove that Irving was a racist, anti-Semitic and knowingly twisted the facts about the holocaust in his academic works.
Irving's reputation lay in ruins after the trial and rightly so. He still has his defenders but the man is a holocaust denier.
The narrative of the film did come across as too much of a 'movie of the week' to me. The film is not riveting enough and at times creaky. The highlight is Tom Wilkinson's masterly performance as the barrister.
Now we had right wingers getting increased media airtime to push their agenda. A period where David Irving's reputation would initially flourish as he was the first to denounce the Stern magazine's publication of the Hitler Diaries as forgeries.
Denial based on true events is adapted by David Hare and directed by Mick Jackson, his return to the BBC after almost 30 years.
American historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) calls David Irving (Timothy Spall) out as a Holocaust denier in a publication. He sues her and her publisher for libel in the English courts. The reason being the burden of proof lies with the accused and the amount of damages were high in England.
Lipstadt had no problems raising funds in America to mount a defence and she employed top lawyers to defend her. Andrew Julius (Andrew Scott) the solicitor dealing with the day to day handling of the case and Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) the barrister who would argue the case in court.
The film has to explain the English legal system and has a narrative of Lipstadt being passionate, wanting to bring survivors of the Holocaust to court to give evidence. She gets short shrift from her lawyers who wanted to prepare for the case dispassionately and methodically.
I think the film downplayed the smart move Julius pulled in getting Irving to agree to the case being tried by a Judge alone and not by a jury. The trial judge Charles Gray (Alex Jennings) had been a noted libel lawyer himself in real life.
The lawyers for Lipstadt had to prove that Irving was a racist, anti-Semitic and knowingly twisted the facts about the holocaust in his academic works.
Irving's reputation lay in ruins after the trial and rightly so. He still has his defenders but the man is a holocaust denier.
The narrative of the film did come across as too much of a 'movie of the week' to me. The film is not riveting enough and at times creaky. The highlight is Tom Wilkinson's masterly performance as the barrister.