Gods of the Plague (1970)

WHO: Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote, produced and directed this, his third feature film, released shortly after he turned 25.

WHAT: Jim Clark, builder of a website with a near-exhaustive section devoted to Fassbinder, notes in his review of Gods of the Plague that it remained one of the director's favorites of his own films. I have not yet seen it myself.

WHERE/WHEN: Tonight only at the Pacific Film Archive at 8:50.

WHY: If you've missed any (or all) of the Fassbinder films screenings that happened at the Roxie over the past week, you have a second chance to see all the films at the PFA, starting tomorrow with perhaps his most accessible, if devastating, masterpiece The Marriage of Maria Braun. Likewise, you have a second shot at the three films screened at the PFA thus far starting this Thursday when Yerba Buena Center For the Arts launches its own ten-title selection of his films with Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

However, if you want to see all twenty-four of the Fassbinder prints coming to Frisco Bay this Fall, you're going to have to be aware of the seven films screening only at the PFA and not in San Francisco. This septet begins tonight with The Katzelmacher and Gods of the Plague, continues Sunday with I Only Want You To Love Me, and is rounded out with Beware of a Holy Whore, Chinese Roulette, the epic World On A Wire and finally Despair starring Dirk Bogarde. I collected a full list of Fassbinder films screening in local venues here, in case you missed it last week.

HOW: All Fassbinder films in this season screen from 35mm prints. (UPDATE 10/12/2013: in fact The Katzelmacher was screened from a DVD last night due to print damage, and I Only Want You To Love Me will screen via Blu-Ray, as has been planned from the series announcement. I regret the error.)