My daughter is studying the policier genre in her literature class. As an exercise, students have been asked to memorize and perform a scene in which a police officer or detective interviews/interrogates a suspect.
I’d like to find a few good representative scenes she can watch or read for ideas.
I’m specifically looking for one-on-one “battle of wits” type scenes, where the detective is trying to manipulate or outsmart the suspect into revealing something, and the suspect is being cagey and evasive in return. In other words it should be verbal and low-key, rather than histrionic or physical.
For ease of sourcing, movies would be preferable, though TV series or novels would also be acceptable, assuming I can find them.
As reference points:
The interrogation scene from American Gangster is an excellent example. Strictly dialog, lots of identifiable beats where the two characters are pushing one another on various points. (Also an underrated movie.)
Agent Kujan’s interrogation of Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects is also pretty good, though the way it’s cut up and sprinkled throughout the movie, and isn’t just a single scene, makes it less preferable for what I want my daughter to see.
By contrast: the interrogation in Dark Knight where Batman is throwing Joker around the interview room is not a good example, because it’s so physical.
Also: the centerpiece interrogation in L.A. Confidential, where Exley is bouncing between the three Nite Owl suspects, is a terrific scene, but (a) it’s got a big crowd of onlookers and (b) Exley is fully in control the whole time and the three suspects never had a chance against him (at least until Bud White loses his mind and intervenes). It’s dramatically excellent, but it’s not an extended give-and-take interview between approximately matched adversaries.
Finally, I’ll give bonus points if the sample scene is in French, because that’s the language of my daughter’s class. When you look at something like this scene from Anthony Mann’s excellent noir T-Men (which flips the script by having the federal agent being interrogated by criminals), you hear a rhythm to the speech, some casual throwaway underworld jargon, that characterizes the genre and gives it its flavor. I’d love for my daughter to hear that kind of thing, but in French.
So, in search of such a scene, I’ve been through my French film noir library, skimming through classics in the genre, from Rififi to Touchez pas au grisbi, and I can’t find a good example. These movies tend to focus heavily on the criminal side of the underworld, and I haven’t come up with a scene where one of the lawbreakers gets plunked down in an interview room and grilled. Pickpocket, for example, has a few interactions between the title character and police officials, but it’s generally in the immediate wake of having been caught plying his trade, rather than the interrogation afterward.
There’s a bit early in Lupin’s first season where Assane Diop kidnaps the police commissioner and fiercely questions him, but again it’s a flipped script, with the official under the hot light and the criminal running the interview. Plus, there’s a lot of theatricality to the projection screens and the altered voice that makes this an atypical interrogation. I’ll use it if I have to, but there has to be a better example.
So. Any suggestions?
