Denial (II) (2016)

Tom Wilkinson: Richard Rampton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Richard Rampton : They're a strange thing consciences. Trouble is, what feels best isn't necessarily what works best.

• Richard Rampton : The coward threatens only where he is safe.

  [Quoting Goethe: "Der Feige droht nur, wo er sicher ist"] 

• Richard Rampton : My lord, during this trial, we have heard from Professor Evans and others of at least 25 major falsifications of history. Well, says Mr. Irving, "all historians make mistakes." But there is a difference between negligence, which is random in its effect, and a deliberateness, which is far more one-sided. All Mr. Irving's little fictions, all his tweaks of the evidence all tend in the same direction: the exculpation of Adolf Hitler. He is, to use an analogy, like the waiter who always gives the wrong change. If he is honest, we may expect sometimes his mistakes to favor the customers, sometimes himself. But Mr. Irving is the dishonest waiter. All his mistakes work in his favor. How far, if at all, Mr. Irving's Antisemitism is the cause of his Hitler apology, or vice versa, is unimportant. Whether they are taken together or individually, it is clear that they have led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian in favor of a bogus rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler and the dissemination of virulent Antisemitic propaganda.

• Sir Charles Gray : Yes, this is a question I have to ask you, Mr. Rampton.

  Richard Rampton : Yes, by all means, my lord.

  Sir Charles Gray : My question is this: If somebody is antisemitic, antisemitic and extremist, he is perfectly capable of being honestly antisemitic, yes? He's holding those views and expressing those views because they are indeed his views.

  Richard Rampton : Well, yes.

  Sir Charles Gray : And so it seems to me, if it comes down to it, that the antisemitism is a completely separate allegation and has precious little bearing on your broader charge that he has manipulated the data?

  Richard Rampton : No, no, my lord. The whole endeavor of the defense has been to prove that the two are connected.

  Sir Charles Gray : But he might believe what he is saying. That is the point. That is why it is so important.

  Richard Rampton : My lord, if we know that Mr. Irving is an anti-Semite, and if we know there is no historical justification for Holocaust denial, then surely it is no great stretch to see that the two are connected.

  Sir Charles Gray : Yes. Thank you. Carry on.

  Deborah Lipstadt : What the fuck just happened? Anthony, what just happened?