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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csenoner is right. of course it's satire... "the elephant in the room"? "exit through the gift shop"? art meets commerce and its ridiculous. this is a "documentary" showing an artist who overnight took the world by storm through hype, when really its not a documentary at all. it's a mockery of the modern art world. banksy is awesome, and he obviously did a good job of fooling everyone.

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The OP's observations are pretty spot on, but I don't think the background story of this Guetta character is completely fictitious. I think it is partly true, and some parts are probably made up to help with the film.

Either way the point of the film is still the same.

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i agree with you. and it's really not that hard to agree when the directing credit is : bansky, lol. i mean, he directed the movie....i guess people are skipping over that tidbit

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[deleted]

Who cares if its real or not. It's a fun little movie about some artists and a wacky Frenchman. Just enjoy it for what it is.

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sorry thats wrong. if you didnt understand the movie, yes its a fun little movie about a wacky frenchman (and that would have been a silly little movie with no redeeming qualities).

If you realized it was not a documentary, then it is no longer a fun little movie about a wacky frenchman. it becomes a scathing criticim of the world of contemporary art (this makes it is a timeless classic).


Because of this huge difference, I think its safe to say that it does matter if its real or not.

If you arent interested in the discussion you dont have to read this thread or post on it. You say 'who cares' but obviously many people do because this thread has had hundreds of posts.

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It's not like that genre of the movie isn't plain mockumentary... xD

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I think it was you who missed the underlining point of the film. It's not about the money, true art. This film is an example of that. Who makes the money? The non-artist.

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I agree, it's kinda a shame the way Thierry exploited art the way he did. His ideas were really based of Banksy's work and much worse, yet he's probably a crap load more successful. It's just a shame how the world works.

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I agree, it's kinda a shame the way Thierry exploited art the way he did. His ideas were really based of Banksy's work and much worse, yet he's probably a crap load more successful. It's just a shame how the world works.


Did you read any of this thread? Thierry IS Banksy! Banksy's creation anyway. The movie was directed by Banksy. If he had REALLY been jealous and disgusted with Thierry...he wouldn't have made this movie!

Don't get tricked! As the OP says, read the title of the movie and take its meaning to heart to understand it. That is the exact message Banksy is sending with this movie: "don't get tricked" out of your money and artistic appreciation in the art museum's gift shop.

(I myself loved "Thierry's" art. That TV monster was great. Campbell's Soup spray paint also. I wouldn't pay $30,000 for it. But I liked seeing it in a movie).

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exclusiveburner- watch it again. you missed a lot.

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and for the record. I do not have any problems with contemporary art. i think there is some great stuff out there. but i think people should make their own decisions. they should decide if they like based on their own emotional or intellectual response to the art rather than liking art because famous people tell you its 'good art'

i have a problem with the 'machine'. The copy cats, the leech ar dealers, the collectors who buy based soley upon perceived value based upon hype rather than the concepts and execution of the work.

the idea of making art designed to fetch the price, its no longer art, its *beep*

the people not being critical of art, but rather testing the waters and forming your opinions of art based on what others think rather than gaging how the art affects you.

this lazniness is what allows someone like mr. brain wash to become a success. banksy proved his point. if you hype up *beep* idiots will by it and pay a *beep* load for it. and lazy idiots will think its 'cool art'.


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"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.

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).

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."

The above statements were my the points in your post that I was basically screaming, "Yes! Exactly what I was thinking!" I am dumbfounded when I see the price on some of these 'contemporary' art pieces hanging in galleries that have sold signs for like upwards of $7,000 and it's crap! My husband is an artist/illustrator and I can't tell you how many times authors have chosen to work with him over another illustrator due to the bad attitude and diva behavior of the other artist...I can't stand diva artists! I agree about some art fans being fickle; I just am not a post-modern or contemporary art kinda gal. I love realism,surrealism, basically something that actually takes genuine hard core artistic skill. Throwing splashes of black and red paint on a jagged canvas and titling it "Suicide" with a caption stating,"The day I experienced hell on earth blah blah blah" just annoys me beyond belief. Thanks for your post, at least I know I'm not the only irritated one :)

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