The Awakening of the Beast (1970)

José Mojica Marins: Self, Zé do Caixão

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Zé do Caixão : My world is strange, but it's worthy to all those who want to accept it, and never corrupt as some want to portray it. Because it's made up, my friend, of strange people, though none are stranger than you!

• Zé do Caixão : From the beginning to the end of the centuries, man is the ruler of everything, he is the master of life, and woman is his instrument. His acts know no reproach. She's the willing slave before the power of man. So it shall be, through ought the millennium. So it shall be, until the end of everything!

• Zé do Caixão : Flesh will be blood, and blood will become water... to bathe the eternal sin... and glorify the pleasures of pain... in the body of the damned. So it shall be, from one galaxy to another, from one existence to another. The little, forever midget, and the great, eternal giant.

• TV Narrator : [on television program Who Afraid of the Truth?]  José Mojica Marins, also knows as Zé do Caixão, writer, director, actor and producer of motion pictures and TV shows. Glauber Rocha, acclaimed throughout the world as the leader of the New Brazilian Cinema, considers Zé do Caixão a primitive artist and a pure filmmaker. Anselmo Duarte, awarded at the Cannes Film Festival, considers Zé do Caixão a filmmaker of undeniable talent. Most critics however, don't take him seriously. Zé do Caixão: filmmaker or fraud? Guilty or not guilty? That's what the people's court of truth is going to decide, starting now. What do you think about life?

  José Mojica Marins : It's absolutely empty.

  Interviewers : Then why not kill yourself?

  José Mojica Marins : Suicide is a crime.

  Interviewers : To argue with him is a waste of time.

  Interviewers : I have no intention of arguing with you, but I'll ask you to give us a clear message. If you say that life is rotten, in a few seconds, you also must explain why.

  José Mojica Marins : Look, I've have no culture to explain the answer to that question.

  Interviewers : How do your movies contribute to the Brazilian Cinema?

  José Mojica Marins : Creating many jobs and giving audiences what they want to see.

  Interviewers : What he writes is a load of rubbish. It's good only to be shredded into pieces.

  José Mojica Marins : At least it was good for something.

  Interviewers : Mojica, that fingernail on your thumb, that nail of a wild boar, do you hang your clothes on it?

  José Mojica Marins : Answer censored.

  TV Narrator : What's the title of your current film?

  José Mojica Marins : Ritual of the Sadists: Awakening of the Beast.

  Interviewers : I am aware of the difficulties of making movies in Brazil. But couldn't you make a movie with a message of happiness?

  José Mojica Marins : Making a film in Brazil is like making a spaceship and sending it to the Moon. We have no resources to make movies, and the filmmaker must create a character. He must attack on all medias. He has to buy imported film stock, film stock! To recreate what's already been created! And show the audiences what they want to see! Otherwise, it's hopeless: the theaters will close! Reviewers will sell bananas and filmmakers will eat the peels!

• José Mojica Marins : My position is neutral. I have no idea why I'm here.