Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

The story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains... See full summary »

Director:

Banksy

Stars:

Banksy, Mr. Brainwash, Debora Guetta

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 16 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Banksy	...	Himself
Mr. Brainwash	...	Himself (as Thierry Guetta aka Mister Brainwash)
Debora Guetta	...	Herself
Monsieur André	...	Himself
Zeus	...	Himself
Shepard Fairey	...	Himself
Ron English	...	Himself
Caledonia Curry	...	Herself (as Swoon)
Borf	...	Himself
Buffmonster	...	Himself
Steve Lazarides	...	Himself
Wendy Asher	...	Herself
Roger Gastman	...	Himself
Laurent Nahoum-Vatinet	...	Himself
Amanda Fairey	...	Herself

Storyline

The story of how an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains footage of Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work.

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Plot Keywords:

artist | graffiti artist | street artist | graffiti | eccentric | 

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Taglines:

The world's first Street Art disaster movie.

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Genres:

Documentary | Comedy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook [de] Official Facebook [es]

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English French

Release Date:

5 March 2010 (UK)

Also Known As:

Banksy - Exit Through the Gift Shop

Filming Locations:

Disneyland Park, Disneyland Resort - 1600 S. Disneyland Drive, Anaheim, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$170,756 (USA) (16 April 2010)

Gross:

$3,290,582 (USA) (29 October 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paranoid Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film had its unofficial UK premiere in an abandoned rail tunnel underneath London's Waterloo station, an area devoted to graffiti and street art. Tickets for this sold out in a minute. A red carpet was spraypainted on the ground especially for the occasion, while spectators were all presented with tins of spray paint as they left the screening.

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Quotes

Thierry Guetta: That's why I call myself Mr. Brainwash. It's because everything that I do... somewhere... it brainwash your face!

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Crazy Credits

At the end says "No elephants were harmed during the making of this movie" referring to Banksy's US expo.

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Connections

Features Ellis G.: The Life of a Shadow (2006)

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Soundtracks

"Staying In"
Performed by Diskjokke

User Reviews

Fake, real, some weird combo. It doesn't matter much, which is... unique

Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film directed by reclusive street-art legend Banksy, is a little puzzle-box of a documentary. It's perfectly designed and pitched to be enjoyable on multiple levels: on one as an entertaining, illuminating mini-history of "street art" and on another - one entirely more convoluted and entertaining - as a light-hearted "up yours" to both street artists and their patrons.

Ostensibly (to take the film's word for it) Banksy's film came about when he, as the premiere 21st Century graffiti art darling, was approached by Thierry Guetta, a French-born Los Angeleno. Guetta wanted to make a documentary about street art, and Banksy was the last major figure whose participation he felt he needed, as an affable personality, a love of video cameras and a chance relationship to Invader, a French street-art pioneer who networked with other artists like Shepard Fairey, had left Guetta with hundreds of hours of footage documenting the birth of the art.

After tracking Banksy down and shooting him working, Guetta retired to the cutting room. He emerged months later and showed it to Banksy. He didn't like the film, a couple of minutes of which are excerpted and are plainly terrible, and offered to take over Guetta's doc while Guetta returned to Los Angeles to turn himself into a street art sensation, named "Mr. Brainwash" or MBW. Transforming overnight from an affable, helpful documentarian to a one-man hype-monster artiste, MBW's enormous spraypaint cans, TV monsters and Warhol-style send-ups captured the attention of the LA art crowd, who spent over a million bucks on his stuff, much to the chagrin of Fairey and Banksy. Guetta's film about Banksy changes into Banksy's film about Guetta and street art, and the rise of a new unfortunate talent.

Except, as I and a lot of other folks believe, it's all made up. It's a hoax, it has to be, it's too hilariously perfect to be anything but. Banksy, as a street artist, has seen the perception of his works - by design temporary, and by design defacements - change from graffiti into art that needs preservation, that is cut out from walls and sold. Banksy, in making Exit Through the Gift Shop with Fairey and Guetta has found a way to deface, scrawl over and heap lighthearted disdain all over both himself and the people who snap up his art.

It's spectacular, it's brilliant and all the more so in that it's still a documentary, still a record of events. It's not artificial, not a mockumentary in the way that Spinal Tap is. MBW exists, having been created by Guetta or Banksy or both, and the film documents his arrival. Exactly who it is that arrives is the film's mystery.

Exit Through the Gift Shop captures the birth of a prank, an elaborate, entertaining gotcha that fits perfectly in Banksy's nose-tweaking, politically-aware, cheeky body of work. Moreover, the film doesn't rely on any rug-snapping-out to really work. It works if it's true, it works if it's not, because it's a construction that's above all entertaining. It's a glimpse, anyway, of a world that's built at night, by streetlight, one that's fascinating even if it is in the middle of pulling the wool over our eyes. It's genius, plain and (not so very much at all) simple.