Alan Dershowitz discusses dramatized film portrayal of his courtroom demeanor

4.2.12 WC: 191694 When I complained to my son, who had co-produced the film, that I don’t throw phones when I lose cases—even capital cases—my son responded: “Dad, you’ve got to get it through your head that the person on the screen isn’t you; it’s your character—‘the Dersh Character.’” He continued to assure me, in his best professional manner, that characters have to “establish themselves” early in the film, and that this “establishing scene” was intended to convey my energy and my passion for the rights of criminal defendants. “If we had several hours, we could have demonstrated your passion by recounting your involvement in many other cases, but we had about a minute; hence the smashed phone.” I wasn’t satisfied. “That scene doesn’t show passion,” I said. “It shows a temper tantrum.” My son tried to explain that a character in a film has to be shown with some faults early on in the film, so that he can “overcome” them. “I know you don’t lose your temper,” Elon assured me smilingly, “but the viewing audience has to see you grow.” Still, I didn’t like being portrayed as a person whose passions—manifested by occasional curses in addition to the smashed phone—are reserved exclusively for his professional life. My “girlfriend” in the film—a mostly fictional character played by Annabella Sciorra—complains loudly that my character has nothing left for the people around him, and my character seems to agree: “My clients are the people I care about.” Poor guy! I hope that’s not me, although I do have to acknowledge that people who know me only professionally assume that I have nothing left for those I love. But the fact is that I reserve a lot of love, loyalty and friendship for family and people close to me. I asked Ron Silver—who knows how important my family and friends are to me—how he felt playing me in way that he knew was something of a stereotype of the passionate lawyer for whom, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ said, “the law is a jealous mistress.” He responded: “I’m playing the public Alan Dershowitz—the one people see on TV and in the newspapers. I can’t get to know the private Alan well enough to play him, and frankly the public isn’t interested in that side of you.” In this book, I will try to interest my readers in both sides of my life, and how each impacts the other, and how both are very much the products of my early upbringing and my lifelong experiences. I think of myself as an integrated whole, though the very different roles I play—as lawyer, teacher, writer, father, husband, friend, colleague—require somewhat different balances among the various elements of my persona. Although this autobiography is my first attempt to explore my life in full, I have written several earlier books that touch on aspects of my public life. The Best Defense dealt with my earliest cases during the first decade of my professional life. Chutzpah covered my Jewish causes and cases. Reversal of Fortune and Reasonable Doubts each dealt with one specific case (Von Bulow and O.J. Simpson). I will try not to repeat what I wrote in those books, though some overlap is inevitable. This more ambitious effort seeks to place my entire professional life into the broader context of how the law has changed over the past half century and how my private life prepared me to play a role in these changes. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017093