Poison

NOTE: The December 15 screening will take place in the Bartos Screening Room and will be preceded by the short Dottie Gets Spanked.

Dir. Todd Haynes. 1991, 85 mins. 35mm. With Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, James Lyons, Scott Renderer. Haynes’s took the independent film scene by storm with his Sundance-awarded breakthrough, an entirely unexpected, confrontational rule-breaker that jumps intuitively among three different narratives, each its own cinematic genre. In “Hero,” Haynes uses the conventions of TV documentary to tell the unusual story of an abused child who killed his father and then mysteriously disappeared; in “Horror,” he employs a B-sci-fi black-and-white template for a grotesque and funny tale of a mad scientist who becomes a pariah after he accidentally ingests his own potion; and in “Homo,” he invokes the work of legendary queer author and playwright Jean Genet for a lush prison romance between two men. Outraged right-wing politicians tried to turn Poison into a punching bag, but Haynes’s film proved resistant and slippery. Less sensational than primal, it’s a film about the outlaw status of demonized gay men during the height of the AIDS crisis and was a cornerstone of the newly coined New Queer Cinema. 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.