MovieChat Forums > Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) Discussion > I CANT BELIEVE YOU GUYS DON'T GET IT

I CANT BELIEVE YOU GUYS DON'T GET IT


The movie is a satire. It is a critique of the contemporary art world. The over-commercializtion and exploitation of street art. why do you think its called exit through the gift shop? that should tell it all right there.

It is not a documentary.

They set everyone up with the stupid Mr. Brainwash Show in LA and convinced a bunch of sheep that the BS 'art' they made was brilliant. all those people, thousands of them were there because they bought into the hype machine and turned a joke into a success.

I am not quite sure if the art really sold for as much as he said. It could have, or maybe its an exaggeration, but it doesnt really matter.

what matters is that all those people didnt look at the crap on the walls and say 'this is not art, this sucks', they bought into the hype and loved it. Why? cuz they go with the flow, they dont develop their own opinions, but rather follow popular opinion.

The experiment proves that if you take a bunch of garbage, throw it on the wall in a huge 'gallery' and have big artists say its the real deal, people will show up and love it cuz they are idiots.

the movie just chronicles this. who knows if guetta is a real character or not. it doesnt matter. he was in on it weather thats his real name or not. The whole thing is a farce. I can't believe no one gets it. I mean by the end of the movie its almost as if they are not even trying to keep up the guise of the documentary going. it gets so out of whack that it should be obvious that its all a joke.

Guetta supposedly started filming in like 2007. he wasnt documenting the birth of street art. he was documenting the death of street art. this has been going on for years. and no i dont mean grafitti. i mean street art, stencils, print outs wheat pasted up. all of that filming happened over the last few years after all of those artists were well established. that footage wasnt home movie footage. it was shot for the purpose of the mockumentary, to make it seem like this guy was a filmmaker documenting street art (i didnt see any old school footage of old school grafitti. how can you tell the story of the birth of street art without telling the story of grafitti. just shows that wasnt the point of the movie). all of the footage was shot to etablish the creation of a fictitious character. this is what creates the whole story. this is the foundation for this supposed documentary. if guetta is the filmaker then why is the camera on him the whole time, even before banksy flipped it on him. who is the guy really behind the camera? ever think of that? the whole storyline about guetta's youth and how he filmed everything in life etc- its all made up.

you think if you show a bunch of video cassettes scattered around a room in boxes that that means its all full of actual footage, years of footage? of course it isnt. it helps to create this ridiculous character and this ridiculous fake movie that he was making (or not making as he shot and shot and didnt edit)so that Banksy could takeover the project. It was all a plan from the beginning.

sorry, maybe life remote control was weird and insane, but it was supposed to seem like that. again, to create a reason for banksy to take over. a guy who has never edited video in his life can not make that movie. it was strange but the editing was no amateur *beep* that was professionally made to look kinda crappy. why? to give a reason for banksy to take over. Why? so he could 'turn the cameras on guetta', who was supposedly a far more interesting story.

he wasnt an interesting figure that needed to be filmed. it became an interesting story after they started filming him , once he became a star. So why did they start filming him in the first place? why would banksy take so much interest in this guy? cuz he didnt give him up to the uber dangerous Disney Land security??? No it was because the clever, unpredictable ending was planned form the beginning. he was a cartoon character. the whole point from the beginning was the build up to the big art show where everyone gets duped. guetta is a symbol of all thats wrong with art. the way he acts on the day of the show, not giving a damn where any paintings go, just telling people build me this build me that. and thats's his art? this is a criticism of an art world in which many artists dont even create their own work. they conceive the piece and have assistants actually make it. yeah, artists dont even paint their own paintings these days (obviously not in all cases but this is prevalent in art culture).

i thought it was obvious, but now the moviegoing crowd is getting duped too. all of these people think its a breathtaking view of the birth of a genius street art form and the birth of a great artist which no one could have predicted. yeah, because hes not an artist. (unless he really is banksy, which i doubt. the french accent is too good. unless banksy really is a french englishman. ha. yeah right)

this is banksy's prank on the world. this is his original piece of art. everyone kept copying his style and it became all commercialized and all the money got involved, so banksy flipped the script on the whole thing. its a joke on fake artists, unoriginal copycats, bogus art critics, the hype machine, fickle 'art' fans who cant make their own opinion, and now the movie-going public that doesnt get it. i thought he made it pretty dam obvious, but not obvious enough.

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The film is a wonderfully sly send-up of commercialism, hypocrisy and opportunism in the art world. 'Mr. Brainwash': perfect. Banksy's mocumentary does for art what Spinal Tap did for rock music, albeit with a sneakier touch. I can't believe that the reviewer didn't get it. Or maybe that's IMDB's prank.

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Right on, brother. I'm with ya!

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

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I think Mr. Brainswash is just a false cover for Banksy and that's if Banksy even exists. This is probably not true and I can't seem to find it anywhere, but I have been toying with the idea that EVERYTHING was Shepard Fairey.

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The fact that people think Bansky got owned is hysterical since hes owning all of you.

What is art?

Csenoner, you're the only person who seems to get it.

Hilarious.

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MBW's latest show was called 'Icons', shall i spell it out...

I con
I con
I CON!!!!!!!!!!!
I con s
Icons

Mr. BRAIN-WASH - I Con s

Playful, very playful Mr. Guetta

How many people still think MBW is genuine?



Avatar: "The biggest box office flop in movie history"
-sith56's Prediction (Wed Dec 2 2009)

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I just watched this film and, I must admit, I was baffled with the many inconsistencies, or should I say, the plot holes in the film.

I wanted to believe, but I kept going back to the obvious gaps. For example, Guetta had been filming every moment of his life (even flushing the toilet), but his family videos seemed frozen in time. There was little progression in the filming of his family life--we never saw his children grow. But, he has all of this footage of his excursions with street artists that must have taken place over years. Very perplexing.

Csenoner's review touches on many of the inconsistencies of the film and, for the most part, nails it.

Csenoner's first statement "The movie is a satire. It is a critique of the contemporary art world," seems spot on (after reading the remainder of his post).

I think back to this ridiculous piece of "art" I saw at MOMA in June of 2009. It was literally a piece of purple yarn thumb-tacked to the wall and floor in the shape of a trapezoid. Nothing else--just string and tacks. And MOMA proudly announced they had just acquired the piece for thousands of dollars. If I remember correctly, it was in the neighborhood of $75,000 (I am not sure of the exact figure because I was so outraged that this was considered a piece of art and what they paid for it, I lost all sensibility and reason). It was not art. Or maybe it was; true art is supposed to elicit a reaction, even anger. Maybe the act of proclaiming it art and advertising how much it cost made it art. But, my initial feeling was (and still is) that it was not worth a major payout and a place in MOMA.

I think this is the point Csenoner is making. True art is so hard to create in our current overexposed media culture that even the art gatekeepers can't decipher what is brilliant and what isn't.

Whomever made this film made the point of the ridiculousness of what constitutes art. And they did a brilliant job of it.

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While this film is obviously a critique of the art world (and the homogenization/main stream hipster embracing of street art in particular), MBW is a real artist. I have no doubt that he is a "goofy" person in real life, and I think that he is not as creative or provocative as other artists featured in Exit Through the Gift Shop. But he is a real person, and a real artist. I ran into him this afternoon (Feb. 27, afternoon of the Oscars) as he was spray painting art on a building wall on Hollywood Blvd. a few blocks from the Kodak Theater. There were cops everywhere, and he obviously was working within the law (I assume he was hired to paint on the wall for a party or some other type of publicity).
Here's a picture I took of him painting - http://yfrog.com/h2rklunj
Here's a picture of the finished work - http://yfrog.com/h4rpdfej

I talked to him a bit, and he said he's been busy working (didn't elaborate), and had a blast accepting the Independent Spirt Award for "Best Documentary" the night before on behalf of Banksy. He seemed like a nice guy, took time to pose for pictures with anyone who asked, and was obviously focused on finishing this piece.

His work is not, IMO, the best stuff in the genre, but if we're being honest the mainstream usually embraces hype while true talent doesn't get as much attention. MBW was, at least at one time, someone in the right place at the right time who knew how to self promote and has enough talent to become popular. I think that this piece above is definitely better than most of the stuff seen in Exit Through the Gift Shop. It is derivative of other street art for sure, but that makes sense since he spent so much time around those artists.

Believe what you want as far as whether or not Thierry Guetta is "real" or not. But myself (and many others who were around today) saw Mr. Brainwash painting and working today, with a few people helping him out, and he is indeed a real artist.

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come on man. the point is the entire charade is a performance piece. the guy is living every day of his life as an actor. hes playing a role. the performance and film were so successful that theyve been able to milk it.. to make money, keep it going and launch thierry to an even higher level.

just because you see the guy painitng doesnt mean that he is an artist. he is playing an artist. it is a satyrical performance. its gone so far, that at this point you could even say that he is an artist because he makes 'art' and that art sells etc. but the fact remains - the character, the movie, the art shows it was all designed as a hoax from the get go.

what it has become at this point is perhaps even more bizarre.

its genius. many people have started to get it now. ive noticed that on this thread the majority of posters now seems to agree with me, but when i posted it originally most people straight up attacked me and even called me a troll.

it seems the truth eventually comes out. i doubt they will ever 'expose the truth'. but the fact is at this point most people realize it anyway - even the mainstream media is starting to understand.

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It's a cunning, brilliant piece of concept art, in and of itself. A powerful message disguised as jive hype - the only way said message could be delivered. Yet this message is being so commonly missed. Which only reinforces and further affirms its content.

Rather sad result in a sense. I wonder how he personally feels about it. Even Banksy may be surprised (and even disappointed) he's been so misunderstood.

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I think about half of your conclusion is right.
Yes, it is meant to criticize corruption in the art world, but I think you went over the top talking about how it was all professionally "staged."

Step aside Butch

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Great post... though confusing - do that many people really not get that it's not real? The satire grow to be so thick by the end that there surely cant be any confusion...?

Some of the humour is particularly British and I can maybe maybe see that these (to me totally obvious) humourous hints go totally over the heads of non-British.

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"The satire grow to be so thick by the end that there surely cant be any confusion...?"

Except it's not satire, it's real life. Remember that phrase about being "stranger than fiction..."?

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I'll rephrase that then. The satire is so thick to anyone who is sensitized to this kind of British satire and who is paying attention. To me, reaction to the movie is like that of an elaborate joke - some people get it, some don't (and they don't understand why people are laughing).

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I CANT BELIEVE YOU GUYS DON'T GET IT


Someone doesn't get it? My friend told me the name of the movie, and that it's about street art... kinda. I got it then. I can see your concern, if someone really doesn't get it.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarky
Graffiti, Jack Russell terrier, monthly series in 1999, British creator, Sex Pistols references, Scarlet Pimpernel and Batman

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