The Return of the Flashback

[Boromir88]

Essex:

It was when he's dragging Pippin by the scruff of his neck and throwing him out the door with his immortal line "Go now, and die in what way seems best to you. " It was delivered in a totally different context to the one I always imagined when reading the books. In the books, Denethor (to me) sounded sincere and heart felt, but in the film, he seems almost as if he is toying with Pippin and (perhaps) ridiculing him.

I felt the same way too, in fact it even says when Denethor first meets Pippin, that Denethor is "touched" by it.

A pale smile, like a gleam of cold sun on a winter's evening, passed over the old man's face; but he bent his head and held out his hand, laying the shards of the horn aside.

I wonder, if this small paragraph here, we can see where Pippin sort of "somewhat" takes the place of Boromir. First off, he smiles, then he sets aside Boromir's horn, so there is no doubt this "warmed" Denethor's grieving heart, and I wonder if Denethor sort of used Pippin to replace Boromir, but as we know it was also to get info out of him. It's a tricky question, and as you said, it all depends on how you read it.