Z (1969)

Jean-Louis Trintignant: Le juge d'instruction

Photos 

Quotes 

• Examining Magistrate : Nom, prénom, profession... Signez votre déposition... Vous êtes officiellement inculpé pour homicide volontaire avec préméditation! Votre mandat de depôt est prêt. La loi accorde vingt-quatre heures aux officiers supérieurs avant de les incarcérer. Si vous voulez éviter les journalistes, vous pouvez sortir par là.

• Attorney General : So you'd indict the chiefs of police and security?

  Examining Magistrate : It's inevitable.

  Attorney General : Only events dictated by divine will are inevitable.

• Le colonel de gendarmerie : Thirteenth witness, a dockhand, "I saw Vago an Yago drinking all evening. By the time they left at 10:00 pm, they were drunk. The Chinaman said, 'Leave the kamikaze.'"

  Examining Magistrate : Kamikaze?

  Le colonel de gendarmerie : A three-wheel hauler. Japanese model.

  Le procureur : This is like the Far East.

• Examining Magistrate : Any convictions?

  Vago : Yes, four.

  Examining Magistrate : Four?

  Vago : Yes, four. Illegal possession of a weapon, abuse and slander, theft - and rape.

  Examining Magistrate : Rape?

  Vago : It wasn't really. I was a Boy Scout camp counselor.

• Examining Magistrate : You're a Communist.

  Vago : Me?

  Examining Magistrate : You and Yago. You're friends. It was something you let slip out: "A rich man catches a cold, we poor still have to work or we die." Then you caught yourself and stopped.

  Vago : I hate Communists!

  Examining Magistrate : Not words. I want proof! Only a Communist would say that.

  Vago : I belong to an anti-Communist group!

  Examining Magistrate : And Yago?

  Vago : Yago too.

  Examining Magistrate : Which one?

  Vago : CROC! Christian Royalist Organization against Communism.

• Vago : This guy leaps onto the truck bed, lithe and ferocious as a tiger. He grabs me - and whoosh! Out I go into the street.

  Examining Magistrate : How did he leap?

  Vago : Like a tiger.

  Examining Magistrate : Before that.

  Vago : Lithe and ferocious as a tiger.

  Examining Magistrate : Yago used the same exact phrase.

• Examining Magistrate : What did you do the day of the murder?

  The General : I'd decided to attend the Bolshoi. Not out of love for dance. I'm no pervert, thank God. But it was a chance to spot sympathizers.

• [repeated line] 

  Examining Magistrate : Name and occupation.

• [repeated line] 

  Examining Magistrate : You are charged with first degree murder.