Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975)

WHO: Brigitte Mira plays the title role in this film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

WHAT: This irony-drenched fable is one of my very favorite Fassbinder's films. Often called his "most political" film, it tackles serious issues but is perhaps more playful in tone than usual. Joanne Laurier and David Walsh co-authored a fine article on the film from a socialist perspective in 2003; they call it "perhaps the last work of his most valuable and politically radical phase of filmmaking, 1971-1975".

WHERE/WHEN: Screens 7PM tonight at the Roxie and at 8:30 on November 30th at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.

WHY: The San Francisco and Berkeley venues showing 24 Fassbinder's films over the next months have done a very good job of coordinating screenings to maximize local cinephiles' chances at seeing as many of them as possible. Only last Friday's dual-venue opening of the season and tonight are there  conflicting screenings at both the PFA and the Roxie. While the latter screens Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, the former shows Effi Briest, which will repeat on October 24th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Though Mira appeared in over a dozen of Fassbinder's films and television works, only six of them are part of the PFA/YBCA/Roxie screening series. Luckily, both of her major 'leading lady' roles are represented, this and Ali: Fear Eats The Soul. Either one is eminently re-watchable for Fassbinder fans, and also an ideal introduction for a newcomer to his work.

HOW: 35mm.

Fear Of Fear (1975)

WHO: Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote and directed this.

WHAT: Among the Fassbinder films I have yet to see. Justin Vicari calls is a "forgotten masterpiece".

WHERE/WHEN: Screens 7PM tonight at the Roxie and 8:50PM October 25th at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.

WHY: It's certainly still possible to see all 24 of the Fassbinder films coming to Frisco Bay over the next few months (which I listed on my blog Friday), even if you missed the five films that screened at the Roxie and PFA over the weekend. Although there are seven films in the series that only screen once (all at the PFA), they don't begin unspooling until this Friday when his 1969 films The Katzelmacher and Gods of the Plague play the PFA. If you miss Fear of Fear at the Roxie tonight, there is still a chance to see it in two and a half weeks.

If you live in San Francisco and want to minimize trips to the East Bay, however, you can do so by seeing Fear of Fear tonight at the Roxie and The Merchant of Four Seasons October 20th at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts instead of seeing the pair at the PFA on the 25th. Seeing another Fassbinder film the same night as his emotionally-draining The Merchant of Four Seasons might not be ideal either, so even if you plan to visit the PFA that night, you might want to attend one or the other film in San Francisco first. Seeing two Fassbinder films in one night is generally unadvised. Luckily it's generally avoidable with this Frisco Bay Fassbinder season.

HOW: 35mm print.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984)

WHO: Directed and co-written by Lau Kar-leung (a.k.a. Liu Chia-liang), who died of leukemia at age 76 this past summer.

WHAT: My favorite kung fu film of all time, which Zach Campbell has noted has "quasi-Brechtian sets and acting"; the fact that it contains particularly exciting action scenes goes without saying.

WHERE/WHEN: Today only at 1:15 PM at the Vogue, presented by the San Francisco Film Society.

WHY: It's the final day of Hong Kong Cinema, the SFFS's first mini-festival of its Fall Season. Other screenings today include Wong Jing's The Last Tycoon, Kiwi Chow's A Complicated Story (executive produced by Johnnie To) and Oxide Pang's Conspirators.

Future Fall Season mini-fests include Zurich/SF October 18-20 and Taiwan Film Days November 1-3. The most recent announcement is the line-up of French Cinema Now, a November 7-10 showcase of Francophone cinema including the local premieres of acclaimed new films by directors such as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Alain Guiraudie, Nicolas Philibert, Denis Côté, and Claire Denis.

HOW: Blu-Ray presentation.

Teorema (1968)

WHO: Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote and directed this.

WHAT: From what I've heard, the most expensive Pasolini film for an institution to procure a 35mm print of, which is probably why it has not been part of every stop on the current national tour of his films (UCLA for instance passed on showing it). A shame, since it's one of his best, and an especially good entry point for a Pasolini newbie.

WHERE/WHEN: Tonight only at the Pacific Film Archive at 6:30.

WHY: Support the PFA's commitment to providing an essentially complete Pasolini series by attending a screening that (if the figure I heard quoted to another venue is correct) is mathematically incapable of making back its print rental cost through ticket sales.

Now's as good a time as any to mention other upcoming PFA series I've not highlighted on this blog. Most of them were just revealed this past week.

October 10-27: Moumen Smihi: Poet of Tangier, dedicated to a Moroccan filmmaker I'm unfamiliar with, but who has been making films since the days of Pasolini and Fassbinder (both of whom shot films in that country).

November 4-22: Afterimage: Agnès Varda on Filmmaking. The "mother of the French New Wave" will be on hand to screen four of her films on November 4th and 5th.

November 8-December 8: Beauty and Sacrifice: Images of Women in Chinese Cinema. Two films starring 1930s Shanghai film icon Ruan Lingyu, two starring Maggie Cheung (including one where she plays Ruan), and Cecile Tang's 1969 film The Arch, which I've been wanting to see for ten years or more.

November 13-17: Arrested History: New Portuguese Cinema. 6 recent films from one of the most interesting European national cinemas today. Includes in-person appearances by filmmakers Susana de Sousa Dias and João Pedro Rodrigues, and the 1st Frisco Bay screening of Miguel Gomes's acclaimed Tabu since last year's Mill Valley Film Festival (but this time in 35mm.)

November 21-24: Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema with Randy Thom, Sound Designer. Three in-person screenings of diverse films featuring sound work by an Academy Award-winner whose film career started with work on one of the greatest-sounding films American of all time, Apocalpyse Now.

December 1-15: The Resolution Starts Now: 4K Restorations from Sony Pictures. Grover Crisp will be on hand two evenings to try to sell us skeptics on the merits of high quality digital projection of nine classic Columbia pictures.

HOW: New 35mm print.

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974)

WHO: Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote, directed, and acted in this.

WHAT: Ed Gonzalez wrote a great review of Fassbinder's international breakthrough as part of a Slant Magazine focus on the director about ten years ago.

WHERE/WHEN: Tonight at the Pacific Film Archive at 8:50, and Thursday, October 17th at Yerba Buena Center For The Arts at 7:30.

WHY: Three Frisco Bay cinemas are running Fassbinder series this autumn, the first major local retrospective of the director's films in ten years. Two of the three begin their screenings tonight. The Roxie begins a week of 7 nightly Fassbinder screenings tonight with one of the director's late works Lola. Meanwhile the PFA in Berkeley screens Ali: Fear Eats the Soul as well as series namesake Love is Colder Than Death tonight to kick off that venue's 24-title series, complimented by a set of four of Fassbinder's favorite films by other directors starting November 1st.

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul will also kick off the YBCA's 10-title series in a couple of weeks. There is no overlap between the Roxie and YBCA titles, but all of them will play the PFA, along with seven others. Following is a list of all the films playing all three venues, in chronological order:

Lola: Roxie October 4 or PFA November 23
Love is Colder Than Death: PFA October 4 or YBCA October 27
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul: PFA October 4 or YBCA October 17
Fox And His Friends: Roxie October 5 or PFA November 15 (same day as Robert Bresson's Pickpocket)
The American Soldier: Roxie October 6 or PFA October 18 (same day as Beware a Holy Whore)
Fear of Fear: Roxie October 7 or PFA October 25 (same day as the Merchant of Four Seasons)
Mother Kusters Goes To Heaven: Roxie October 8 or PFA November 30
Effi Briest: PFA October 8 or YBCA October 24   
Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant: Roxie October 9 or PFA October 29
Marriage of Maria Braun: Roxie October 10 or PFA October 12
The Katzelmacher: PFA October 11
Gods of the Plague: PFA October 11
I Only Want You To Love Me: PFA October 13
Beware a Holy Whore PFA October 18 (same day as The American Soldier)
The Merchant of Four Seasons YBCA October 20 or PFA October 25 (same day as Fear of Fear)
Chinese Roulette: PFA November 1 (same day as Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind)
World on a Wire: PFA November 2
Veronika Voss: YBCA November 3 or PFA November 24
Satan's Brew: PFA November 9 or YBCA November 16
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok: YBCA November 21 or PFA December 6
Martha: YBCA December 1 or PFA December 12
Despair: PFA December 6
Querelle: YBCA December 8 or PFA December 14 (same day as Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar)
In A Year of 13 Moons: PFA December 15 or YBCA December 21

HOW: All films in the Fassbinder season screen from 35mm prints. (UPDATE 10/17/2013: in fact The Katzelmacher was screened from a DVD due to print damage, and I Only Want You To Love Me screened via Blu-Ray, as had been planned from the series announcement. I regret the error. UPDATE 11/30/2013: Despair will also screen via Blu-Ray)