Denial Page #15

DEBORAH:

That doesn’t mean it isn’t

effective.

JULIUS:

Robert Jan will deal with it

tomorrow. Look, look at these.

DEBORAH:

I’ve looked at them, I know them.

JULIUS:

Here we are look, perfectly clear,

the Olere drawings, the USAF aerial

photos, the Little Train photo...

DEBORAH JULIUS:

I know these photos, I’ve There they are. The holes, in

seen them a thousand times, I all the photos in exactly the

don’t need to look, that’s same place, same pattern,

not the point I’m making... that’s what Robert Jan’s

going to say, Robert Jan will

say...

DEBORAH:

Yes, and we know what Irving is

going to say. He’s going to say

they’re not holes, they’re shadows.

They’re glitches on the negative.

Or they’re forgeries. Or they’re

paint-cans on the roof.

JULIUS:

And we’ll prove otherwise.

DEBORAH:

How do you prove that? It’s too

late. It’s already out there! It’s

in the press.

JULIUS:

So?

DEBORAH:

Irving’s got what he came for. He

wanted headlines.

(MORE)

Full Blue Script // December 4th 2015 72.

DEBORAH (CONT'D)

Well he’s got ‘em. ‘No holes, no

holocaust!’ It’s O.J. all over

again! ‘If the glove doesn’t fit,

you must acquit.’ That’s what he

wanted. He wanted a catchy phrase.

And now he’s got it. It’s like a

virus

LAURA:

Do you want tea?

DEBORAH LAURA (TO HERSELF)

No I don’t want tea. You know Just asking.

what he’s doing...

DEBORAH:

He’s making it respectable to say

there are two points of view.

People hear the news, they think:

‘Oh I see, some people believe

there were gas chambers at

Auschwitz, and hey, this is

interesting - some people don’t.’

JULIUS looks to RAMPTON, but he is staring ahead, uninvolved.

LAURA is giving them all tea. NIK and THOMAS are coming in to

pick up the photos and get them duplicated.

LIBSON:

Deborah, you know why Irving chose

Auschwitz-Birkenau in the first

place?

DEBORAH:

Why he chose Auschwitz? Because

everyone’s heard of it.

LIBSON:

No.

DEBORAH:

Because of its emotional impact.

LIBSON:

No.

DEBORAH:

Well?

LIBSON:

Because it was not built as an

extermination camp, it was built as

a labour camp. Then it was

modified.

DEBORAH:

I know that.

Full Blue Script // December 4th 2015 7373.

JULIUS:

Yes, but that’s why he’s going

after it. It’s a battering ram into

a much bigger subject. Auschwitz is

at the centre of Holocaust belief,

that’s why it’s also at the centre

of Holocaust denial. If you think

of it logically, it makes no sense

at all, what he said. Think what

he’s saying... “No holes, no

Holocaust!” He seizes one tiny

fact, and because some detail can’t

still be physically proved, he says

“Oh well then, that means

everything’s thrown into doubt. No-

one in the camp was ever murdered.

They all died of typhus! It wasn’t

the Nazis who killed them, it was

disease!”

DEBORAH is shaking her head, not satisfied.

DEBORAH:

I know, I know he does that...

JULIUS:

For goodness’ sake, it’s the same

with the Hitler trick, offering a

thousand dollars...

LIBSON:

Exactly the same.

DEBORAH:

Tell me about it, I’m the one he

did it to. “Oh well if you can’t

find a piece of paper where Hitler

says ‘Please murder the Jews’, then

that proves Hitler never wanted

them to die in the first place.

Hitler was the Jews’ best friend.”

He said that! He actually said it!

JULIUS, LIBSON and DEBORAH are absorbed in their argument,

but RAMPTON has sat listening quietly throughout.

RAMPTON:

I have to go.

DEBORAH:

No, hold on...

RAMPTON:

What?

Full Blue Script // December 4th 2015 7474.

DEBORAH:

I want to say something and for

once I want everyone to listen. I’m

the f***ing defendant!

Frustrated and angry, DEBORAH has lost it completely, but

RAMPTON is staring at her, thoughtful.

DEBORAH (CONT’D)

Even I know what the rule is. The

client instructs. That’s the rule.

Well the client’s instructing. The

survivors go on the stand. And I go

on the stand as well.

She waits for the impact of her statement. But RAMPTON just

gets up and starts to leave.

RAMPTON:

Gentlemen.

DEBORAH:

What’s happening? Where are you

going? Why’s he leaving? Richard,

wait.

97 INT. HALLWAY & STAIRS. MISHCON DE REYA. DAY 97

DEBORAH follows but RAMPTON is already disappearing down the

stairs, with a broad grin and an ironic wave of the hand.

JULIUS follows DEBORAH out.

JULIUS:

Because he has to prepare! That’s

why he’s leaving. He doesn’t just

turn up in court. He devotes his

whole day, every minute of his day,

rigorously, to this case and

nothing but! And that’s the point!

JULIUS has now lost it as well. DEBORAH is already shaking

her head. But JULIUS is heading into a conference room.

98 INT. CONFERENCE ROOM. DAY 98

JULIUS comes in, and starts looking through videos as they

argue.

DEBORAH:

What you’re ignoring, what you

refuse to deal with: we know what

happened at Auschwitz because there

are people who actually saw it...

JULIUS:

Oh Deborah...

Full Blue Script // December 4th 2015 7575.

DEBORAH:

Yes. With their own eyes. They’re

called survivors.

JULIUS:

Yes. And put survivors on the stand

and Irving will humiliate them.

Remember the Zundel trial. Remember

the Exodus trial. The survivors got

torn apart. Because survivors don’t

remember. Not every detail. They

get something wrong - they say a

door was on the left, when actually

it was on the right - and wham!

Irving’s in. “You see! They’re

liars, you can’t trust anything

they say...”

LIBSON:

That’s it, that’s the technique.

JULIUS has put a tape in the machine. LIBSON and LAURA have

followed the argument into the room.

JULIUS:

There are survivors who believe

they were examined by Dr Mengele.

They never even met Mengele, he was

at another camp altogether. But

they met a doctor and today they

believe it was him. Do you think

Irving is going to respect them?

You want that, do you? Holocaust

survivors mocked and humiliated?

He turns up the sound on a TV image of IRVING with a crowd in

Florida. He is holding up a photo of a survivor with a tattoo

on her arm.

IRVING (TV)

... and I’ll say to her “Mrs.

Altman, how much money have you

made out of that tattoo since

1945?”

JULIUS turns off the TV and throws down the control.

JULIUS:

You want more of that? You think

that’s helpful?

99 EXT. MISHCON. NIGHT 99

DEBORAH steps into the path of a taxi with outstretched arm,

forcing it to screech to a halt.

Full Blue Script // December 4th 2015 7676.

100 INT. TAXI. NIGHT 100

DEBORAH has got into a taxi outside Mishcon de Reya. Bad-

tempered, she leans forward to the DRIVER.

DEBORAH:

We’re going to the Athenaeum, you

want to go to Pall Mall, it’s

quickest.

DRIVER:

Sorry, but in this country we don’t

tell the cabbie which route to

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