Great film, Rachel... shame about the slip up

HERE comes that rare thing – an intelligent and entertaining film. It’s called Denial and it is about the London libel trial that destroyed the reputation of the ghastly David Irving, who claims that Hitler did not industrially mass-murder Europe’s Jews. The best thing about it is that the decisive courtroom scenes are word-for-word true.

Tom Wilkinson, one of the great actors of our age, beautifully portrays the cool, restrained disgust with which Richard Rampton QC cross-examined Irving. He destroyed him not with histrionics, but on the facts. Irving was shown beyond doubt to be a hateful bigot who purposely told untruths.

Of course, it’s a film, so there are embellishments. Irving (who is quite good-looking) is played by Timothy Spall, doing his impression of a disgruntled codfish (or me, if you prefer). Deborah Lipstadt, who fought the case and looks, well, like an American professor, is portrayed by the glamorous Rachel Weisz. And I’m not sure the makers fully understand how the law works.

But one thing cheeses me off. At the end of the trial, Prof Lipstadt is shown listing a number of things which everyone knows to be true. The Holocaust happened. The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Slavery happened. Yup, so far, so good. Then we get: ‘The ice caps are melting.’

Sorry, but this is a category error. Apart from the curious fact that sea ice has actually been expanding at the South Pole in recent years, the manmade global warming thing remains a belief and an opinion.

It may be true. It may not be. Those who dispute it are not evil or bigots. To compare their doubts to Irving’s lies is plain wrong, especially in a film about a trial that hinged on absolute truth.