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José Mojica Marins

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In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Mojica and the second or paternal family name is Marins.
José Mojica Marins
Marins circa 2009
Born(1936-03-13)13 March 1936
São Paulo, Brazil
Died19 February 2020(2020-02-19) (aged 83)
São Paulo, Brazil
NationalityBrazilian
Other namesZé do Caixão
Coffin Joe
Mojica
J. Avelar
Occupation(s)Filmmaker
Film actor
Television actor
Media personality
Horror host

José Mojica Marins (13 March 1936 – 19 February 2020) was a Brazilian filmmaker, actor, composer, screenwriter, and television horror host. Marins is also known for creating and playing the character Coffin Joe (loosely translated from Zé do Caixão) in a series of horror films; the character has since gone on to become his alter ego as well as a pop culture icon, a horror icon, and a cult figure. The popularity of Coffin Joe in Brazil has led to the character being referred to as "Brazil's National Boogeyman" and "Brazil's Freddy Krueger".[1][2]

Born in São Paulo, Marins made his feature film directorial debut the 1950s with the film Adventurer's Fate. He went on to direct the 1964 film At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, which is considered Brazil's first horror film.[3] At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul marks the first appearance of the Coffin Joe character, a role that Marins would reprise in This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967) and Embodiment of Evil (2008), along with a number of other films and television series. He is considered to have been a pioneer of Brazilian horror cinema and of graphically violent horror films in general.[4]

Early life

Marins was born on Friday, 13 March 1936 in São Paulo, Brazil at a farm in the Vila Mariana, to Antonio André Marins and Carmen Mogica Imperial, both descended from Spanish immigrants.[3][5] His interest in filmmaking began at an early age. When Marins was three, his father ran a local cinema, and the family lived in a flat above it.[6][7]

During his childhood, Marins made short films with a camera that his parents had given to him as a present.[3] These shorts starred himself and his neighbours, and were exhibited at churches and amusement parks, as he explained in one of his last interviews, in 2012:

I lived in a theater, and at that time — we are talking about the 1950s –, if you lived in a theater everyone wanted to be your friend. My father, I was his only child, so he supported me a lot. He let me put ads in front of the theater, which was the only one in the neighborhood, asking for people to appear in my films. Holy shit, there were always lots of guys and girls wanting to be in my movies. (...) So we traveled around the state, [stopped in a city], placed the screen and projected our films. We charged groceries as tickets, people gave us groceries, and to be honest, afterward we sold these groceries at a very cheap price to earn a buck and be able to travel to another city.[8]

In 1953, at the age of 18, Marins founded Cia. Cinematográfica Atlas (the Atlas Film Company)[3], and tried to produce his first professional feature, Sentença de Deus (God's Sentence). The production was definitively interrupted after the tragic death of an actress.

Mojica decided to direct his company's efforts towards another project, the western A Sina do Aventureiro (Adventurer's Fate), which was released commercially in 1958. Mojica's first feature was largely ignored. Some years later, the director would shoot additional scenes with naked women to add to the movie and be able to show it in theaters again.[8]

Marins' next project was a 1963 musical melodrama for the religious audience, called Meu Destino em Suas Mãos (My Destiny In Your Hands). The project was suggested by a priest from the filmmaker's parish. Mojica thought the film would be a great success, but it ended up becoming one of the biggest box office failures of his career. Despite this, he always liked the result:

I was a very religious guy at the time. I was even an altar boy. So I thought I had an obligation to do something for the church. And this something is ‘Meu Destino em Suas Mãos’, which shows another face of José Mojica Marins. Maybe it’s the real face, and what I did in ‘Meu Destino em Suas Mãos’ was what I really felt, that was the man I was. So I think this film has a huge contrast with the movies of Coffin Joe. If you see both, you’ll probably think: ‘The guy who made this one would never do the other one’. (...) I like it very much. I think it’s a human film, a very humanistic film. At the time he was not understood.[8]

The disappointing performance of My Destiny In Your Hands ended up pushing José Mojica Marins into the realms of horror cinema: his next project would be the classic At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul.

Career

Coffin Joe

Main article: Coffin Joe

Marins is best known for creating and portraying Coffin Joe, a character who is considered a horror icon, a Brazilian cultural icon, and a cult figure.[1][5][9]

An amoral undertaker with Nietzschian philosophies and a hatred for organized religion, the character first appeared in the 1964 film At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. Considering the poor box office of his two previous features, not even Mojica himself expected the smashing success of the film and the character: "I really made the film thinking that it would be shown only in those late-night exhibitions. I didn’t imagine that it would have a commercial release and that it would run all over the world".

The filmmaker was already considering making new films with Coffin Joe if the first one was successful. Immediately after At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul he decided to transform the character's saga into a trilogy, revolving around his homicidal quest to find "the perfect woman", so he can achieve metaphorical immortality by having a son.[10][11][12]

Following the success of the first film, Marins reprised his role as the character in This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967). Much more ambitious than the previous one, the sequel proves the director's visual creativity: scenes that take place in a forest, including one in which Coffin Joe crosses a stream in a rowing boat, were entirely filmed in-studio, in scenarios built in an abandoned synagogue.

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse was also notable for being a black-and-white film with a long color scene in the middle, showing Coffin Joe's descent into hell. The moment provoked controversy during the filming, according to Mojica:

I decided that I wanted to film hell in color, but I didn’t know that I was dealing with very religious people within the production. And these people thought that I couldn’t do that, that hell couldn’t be shown in color. They asked me: ‘Why don’t you make all the film in color and show hell in black-and-white?’. And I said: ‘Because I have a different point of view. I have always seen my hell colored’. It wouldn’t be fun to show all that blood if it appeared black on the screen, not red. And I believe that hell has to be a place where you see beautiful things being destroyed.[8]

The director intended to end the Coffin Joe Trilogy with a blockbuster called A Encarnação do Demônio (The Incarnation of the Devil), but met with resistance from the producers. Trying to gather the necessary budget to complete his saga, Marins agreed to make other films in which Coffin Joe would appear only as a supernatural entity, presenting horror stories without his direct participation (as in the 1968 anthology The Strange World of Coffin Joe) or haunting the nightmares of different characters (in Awakening of the Beast and Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind).

With Brazil facing times of Military Dictatorship, the filmmaker was forced to postpone his plans. And with the decline of his career, the third and final part of the trilogy would be produced just 40 years later: Embodiment of Evil (2008), the last feature film directed by Marins.

The character has also appeared in comic books[2] and music videos.[13]

The popularity of Coffin Joe has resulted in the character being referred to as the Brazilian equivalent of Freddy Krueger.[1][2][14][15] Interestingly, his film Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978) shows Coffin Joe appearing in the protagonist's nightmares, and haunting him with his long nails (real in this case), six years before Freddy Krueger's appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

1970s

In 1964, almost at the same time that Marins began to venture into horror cinema, there was the Military Coup that put Brazil under a violent dictatorship. Several Brazilian artists were persecuted and forced to seek exile abroad.

For the content of his films, Mojica became an easy target: censorship not only mutilated his films but also required the filming of new happy endings for some of them.

The hardest blow suffered by Marins involved his great masterpiece, O Despertar da Besta (Awakening of the Beast). Finished in 1969, the film was confiscated for censorship due to its controversial content (mixing Coffin Joe with psychotropics and counterculture) and had its exhibition banned for almost 20 years. Thus, the film hit Brazilian theaters only in 1986, and without causing the same impact, something the director regrets to this day:

Wow, that movie would blow everything up! I think it would end all the perversion that existed at the time. The film was produced as a cry of revolt against our politicians at that time, against things that I didn’t accept. The whole story was born when I talked to a very beautiful prostitute that I wanted to put in a movie. Suddenly a group of policemen appeared and took her prisoner. So far, so good. I waited for days until she was released. That girl was 22 years old, and when she was released from prison she looked 80 years old! She was slaughtered, suffered all kinds of torture, and that image left a deep impression on me. Seeing that beautiful girl entering the prison and leaving like a mummy, a horrible thing. This is still inside me.[8]

Because of this, producers began to be afraid to work with Mojica, because confiscated films represented financial suicide at the time. The director himself began to soften the tone of his next projects. For example, his next movie was Finis Hominis (The End of Man), a critical view of Brazil under dictatorship, this time hidden behind allegories. Mojica considers The End of Man one of his best films, and for years he had the dream of filming a duel between Finis Hominis (his "good character") and Coffin Joe.

Over the 1970s, Marins returned to Western genre (with Dgajão Mata para Vingar, produced to take advantage of the success of Django), filmed jungle adventures (Sexo e Sangue na Trilha do Tesouro), erotic comedies (A Virgem e o Machão, Como Consolar Viúvas) and some horror films. These were far less sophisticated productions than his 1960s classics.

One of his most interesting works of the time was Exorcismo Negro (The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe), a 1974 Brazilian ripoff of The Exorcist. The director had his biggest budget so far, and the script invested in metalanguage, showing Mojica as himself and ending with a duel between him and Coffin Joe.

Another highlight of the period, which is more interesting as an experiment, is Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978). To challenge the censorship, Marins constructed the entire story using scenes that had been cut from his previous films: "I put back everything that was cut, as a confrontation. Everything I was asked to cut in my whole career I put in this new film, and it passed uncut this time! I thought: ‘Fuck, it can be!’. Because everything they cut from my other films was there."[16]

Marins ended the 1970s in great financial difficulties, releasing two unsuccessful films (Perversion and Mundo-Mercado do Sexo), which were his last experiences in the horror/ thriller genres to reach theaters until the 2000s.

1980s

In 1980, Mojica directed his last horror film for almost 30 years: A Praga (The Plague), about a man who develops a wound that needs to be fed with human flesh. This independent production was filmed in Super-8 and ended up shelved due to a lack of resources to finish it. The raw material was rescued only in 2007, re-edited with new scenes, and then shown in a retrospective of Mojica’s career that took place in São Paulo that year. A commercial release of the film was expected, but this did not occur until the director's death in 2020.[17]

In a desperate attempt to get the money that would allow him to film the third film in the Coffin Joe Trilogy, Marins ventured into pornographic cinema during the rest of the 1980s.

One of his X-Rated films (24 Hours of Explicit Sex, 1985) was a huge box office hit, much to the filmmaker's desperation. Part of the film's fame came from the fact that it showed, for the first time in Brazilian cinema, an explicit sex scene between an actress and a dog.

With his career on decline since the mid-1970s, Marins has seen his chances of returning to direct horror films disappear after the experience of directing porn, something the filmmaker himself regrets:

I didn’t enjoy myself, but it was a challenge. And the people at Boca do Lixo used to say that I just didn’t make this kind of film because I didn’t know how to do it. That touched my pride, and I decided to show them that I knew how to do better than anyone, I just didn’t do it before because I didn’t like it. So I directed ‘24 Horas…’ and proved that I could stop Brazil, because for a whole year everybody was talking about this film. (...) But the truth is, I didn’t like that. I actually filmed sex without liking it. What I like is to film sexuality, something that makes me much hornier than showing it explicitly. So I filmed explicit sex, but it didn’t feel right. I did it for money.[18]

Other film work

José Mojica Marins in O Profeta da Fome (1971).
Main article: José Mojica Marins filmography

Although most known for films in the horror genre, Marins also created exploitation, drugsploitation, sexploitation (often in the form of pseudo-documentaries), and Westerns. Marins is noted for his low-budget film style, often using friends and amateur actors as cast and crew. His films are usually set in São Paulo, Brazil.[citation needed]

Marins became interested in cinema at a young age. He recounted that he made his first film, O Juízo Final (Judgement Day), shot in 8 mm, in 1948 at the age of 12. He followed with Encruzilhada da Perdição (Crossroads to Perdition, 1952).[19][20]

Mojica was one of several directors invited to participate in the 2013 anthology horror film The Profane Exhibit.[21] It was announced that he was going to direct a segment called "Viral", but that ended up not happening.

In 2014 he finally collaborated with other directors on the Brazilian anthology film The Black Fables.[22]

Television work

Marins hosted a monthly interview program The Strange World of Coffin Joe[5] on the Brazilian television station Canal Brasil, in which he discussed Brazilian media and culture with other contemporary figures, such as actors and musicians. His guests included Zé Ramalho, Rogério Skylab, and Supla.[23][24]

From 1967 to 1988, Marins hosted the program Além, Muito Além do Além (Beyond, Far Beyond the Beyond)[5] on TV Bandeirantes, in character as Coffin Joe, presenting short horror tales written by author and screenwriter Rubens Luchetti. Some scripts were later adapted as Coffin Joe comic books. The show's tapes were reused and currently there are no known intact recordings of this program.[25]

Marins directed and hosted The Show from the Other World (Um Show do Outro Mundo) on Rede Record de Televisão, again appearing as Coffin Joe. The half-hour program featured short horror films, with many of the stories sent in by the viewers themselves and adapted by members of Marins' production team. As with his earlier show, the original tapes were reused and there is no known record of this material.[26]

In 1996 Marins hosted the daily television program Cine Trash on TV Bandeirantes, which featured full-length horror films.[27][28]

Documentaries

Marins appears in The Universe of Mojica Marins (O Universo de Jose Mojica Marins, 1978), a 26-minute documentary film directed by Ivan Cardoso. Marins portrays himself in the film, which also features interviews with Marins' mother Carmem Marins, film editor Nilcemar Leyart, and Satã (Marins' assistant and bodyguard).[29] In 1987 Marins released the semi-autobiographical documentary film Demons and Wonders (Demônios e Maravilhas), in which he appears as himself re-enacting moments from his life, with his family and associates playing themselves as well.[30]

A 2001 documentary film, Damned – The Strange World of José Mojica Marins (Maldito - O Estranho Mundo de José Mojica Marins), directed by biographers André Barcinski and Ivan Finotti, examines Marins's life and works. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.[31][32]

Death

Marins died of complications caused by bronchopneumonia on 19 February 2020, aged 83, in São Paulo.[1][33][34] Prior to his death, Marins had been hospitalized for about 20 days.[33][34]

Selected filmography

Main article: José Mojica Marins filmography

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Squires, John (19 February 2020). "[R.I.P.] Brazilian Master of Horror José Mojica Marins Has Passed Away". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  2. ^ a b c Whittaker, Richard (28 October 2017). "My Friend Coffin Joe". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d Bergfelder, Shaw & Vieira 2016, p. 178.
  4. ^ Bergfelder, Shaw & Vieira 2016, p. 191.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rohter, Larry (19 October 2011). "A Cult Figure Conjures the Macabre". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  6. ^ Dennison & Shaw 2004, pp. 140–141.
  7. ^ Rist, Peter; Donato Totaro (30 June 2005). "Jose Mojica Marins: Up-Close and Personal (interview)". Offscreen.com. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
  8. ^ a b c d e Guerra, Felipe M. (31 October 2020). "My Last Interview With José Mojica Marins (Part 1 of 3) (interview)". FanFare. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  9. ^ Trussell, Jacob (29 October 2019). "The Horror Legacy of Rudy Ray Moore". Film School Rejects. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  10. ^ Pinazza & Bayman 2014, p. 86.
  11. ^ Bergfelder, Shaw & Vieira 2016, p. 180.
  12. ^ Hubert, Andrea (3 July 2009). "Film preview: The Twisted Genius Of Coffin Joe, London". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  13. ^ Rouner, Jef (3 September 2013). "From Beyond Takes on Coffin Joe In New Video (NSFW)". Houston Press. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  14. ^ Atkinson, Michael, ed. (2008). Exile Cinema: Filmmakers at Work Beyond Hollywood. SUNY Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0791473771.
  15. ^ a b Pinazza & Bayman 2014, p. 23.
  16. ^ Guerra, Felipe M. (2 November 2020). "My Last Interview With José Mojica Marins (Part 2 of 3) (interview)". FanFare. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  17. ^ Guerra, Felipe M. (2 November 2020). "My Last Interview With José Mojica Marins (Part 2 of 3) (interview)". FanFare. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  18. ^ Guerra, Felipe M. (4 November 2020). "My Last Interview With José Mojica Marins (Part 3 of 3) (interview)". FanFare. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  19. ^ Dennison & Shaw 2004, pp. 140–144.
  20. ^ "Filmografia/Cinema Brasileiro" (in Portuguese). Portal de Cinema de Brasileiro. 2006. Archived from the original on 3 March 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2009.
  21. ^ Zimmerman, Samuel (25 April 2012). "Coffin Joe and "Timecrimes" director now part of "The Profane Exhibit"". Fangoria. Archived from the original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  22. ^ Barton, Steve (6 January 2015). "Coffin Joe on Hand to Tell One of The Black Fables (As Fabulas Negras)". Dread Central. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  23. ^ "Official site for Canal Brasil television" (in Portuguese). Canal Brasil. 2008. Archived from the original on 23 October 2008. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
  24. ^ "Official site/O Estranho Mundo do Zé do Caixão". Universo Online (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  25. ^ "Official site". Universo Online (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  26. ^ "Official site/Um Show do Outro Mundo". Universo Online (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  27. ^ "At Midnight" (in Portuguese). Journal da Tarde. 2008. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
  28. ^ "Official site/Cine Trash". Universo Online (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  29. ^ "Official site/O Universo de Jose Mojica Marins". Universo Online (in Portuguese). 2006. Retrieved 15 October 2009.
  30. ^ "Demônios e Maravilhas". Universo Online. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  31. ^ a b Ruétalo & Tierney 2009, p. 115.
  32. ^ Turan, Kenneth (29 January 2001). "Going to Extremes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  33. ^ a b Finotti, Ivan (19 February 2020). "Morre o cineasta José Mojica Marins, o Zé do Caixão". Folha de S.Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 19 February 2020.
  34. ^ a b "Brazilian horror filmmaker and actor Marins dies at age 83". Associated Press. 19 February 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  35. ^ Ruétalo & Tierney 2009, pp. 45, 94.
  36. ^ a b Ruétalo & Tierney 2009, p. 45.
  37. ^ Rabkin, Leslie Y. (1998). The Celluloid Couch: An Annotated International Filmography of the Mental Health Professional in the Movies and Television, from the Beginning to 1990. Scarecrow Press. p. 387. ISBN 978-0810834620.
  38. ^ Olson, Christopher J.; Reinhard, CarrieLynn D. (2016). Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema. Lexington Books. p. 185. ISBN 978-1498519083.
  39. ^ Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra (2011). Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study. McFarland & Company. p. 154. ISBN 978-0786449613.

Bibliography

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