Summer is difficult. With the storms, the heat, and the fatigue, I've been developing opinions about The Bachelorette. But like an answer to a prayer I saw Exit Through the Gift Shop a couple of weeks ago, a cure for the summer hiatus blues. Exit is a documentary (or is it?) about the street art movement and a man who made it his mission to film it. Banksy and Shepard Fairey are the protagonists, and Thierry Guetta (his current call sign is Mr. Brainwash) is the film's main subject. It tells the story of Guetta's attempts to film and create a documentary on street art; in the end he becomes an artist himself (sort of) to rave reviews and dubious results. Guetta's documentary was heinous according to Banksy, and so Banksy hijacked the project, focusing on Guetta where Guetta had focused on him.
The buzz about this film centers on whether it's a prank or a hoax or truly, sincerely, uncomfortably real. It's an interesting question. If it's a prank, then what is the prank? On whom?
For most of the scenes in the film, it's not plausible to argue that they're staged. When Shepard Fairey first appears he is with his wife, Amanda, creating decals together at Kinko's. Later, Amanda explains the rules for her husband's nighttime adventures--he's home by two, or if he's not going to be home by two, he calls by two, or else he gets beaten and sleeps on the couch. Some argue that these things didn't happen when the film implies they did. Maybe, but it doesn't matter. These are sweet moments in a marriage, and I haven't seen anyone claim that the Faireys' mutual considerateness was faked.
The scene when Banksy explains how he realized that he had accidentally counterfeited a hundred thousand pounds also rings true. In that instant we the audience are also reminded that this art, which by now we want to cover more streets in more cities, is operating on the edge of the law, that Banksy is not just anonymous for fun but because it makes some of his art possible. His career is no hoax.
So overall, this film a lovely and loving look into a world to which I am always only a spectator, and I appreciated it. But critics smell a rat. The Times is certain that the film is a hoax. Alissa Walker of Fast Company calls the film a prank. Rebecca Cannon thinks it's art's first "WTF moment" of the 21st century. They have a point: there are a few suspicious things about the film. The Banksy who first appears cutting out a rat stencil wears a wedding band, the Banksy who narrates through a voice modulator does not. But people get divorced, and besides, that's a small thing.
Others are not so small. As the film reaches its climax, Banksy asks to see Guetta's progress on his street art documentary. Guetta has been documenting obsessively for years; it seems like time to put together something real. The film Guetta excitedly shows him is heinous, unwatchable, insulting. In an attempt to save the embarrassing project, Banksy encourages Guetta to spend his time making his own street art and asks for the raw footage. He creates a monster: Guetta goes all out, hosting his own enormous Mr. Brainwash gallery show--with art that he has not himself created, but has commissioned his paid staff to plagiarize. The show sells enough art in pre-sales to finance the massive project, for which Guetta has spent his last dime, even mortgaging his house. The art is vapid and derivative, but Guetta bribes or extorts Fairey and Banksy to blurb his show, and lo and behold more than seven thousand people show up for opening day. The show, though an artistic black hole, is a commercial success. Recently, Mr. Brainwash was commissioned to create the cover art for Madonna's latest greatest-hits album.
In the film, Guetta is never shown making art, just spilling paint on posters and bossing people around. And could he really have come up with the money to finance this? Is this all really his show?
If the Mr. Brainwash phenomenon is a prank, so the theory goes, Mr. Brainwash is actually Banksy, and Guetta only a front. Instead of Guetta's customers paying too much for bad art, those that declined to buy it actually missed out on getting a really cheap Banksy. The evidence is that Mr. Brainwash's style looks like some second-tier imitation of Banksy, or like Banksy trying to do bad Banksy, and that Banksy is a prankster. So it seems plausible that he just laughed uproariously at all the suckers running out to see the crap he made for funsies. Banksy must have used Guetta, must have used the LA art world, for his own amusing gotcha.
If this is a prank, then the documentary is a lie, and we the audience, laughing at Guetta's folly, are all dupes ourselves for believing it. Banksy must have used us.
If we were used, then we have seen this before. Paper Heart, a half-documentary film about love, combines documentary-style interviews with a central drama, where Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera fall for each other. The structure is extremely effective--while we the audience hear theories of love and experiences of love from real people, chemists to Elvis-impersonating Vegas chapel ministers, we also witness it happening in all of its lovely specifics. The love story we live through as the audience is a fiction, but have we learned any less about love? In 24 Hour Party People, the story is based on truth, but the film is scripted and acted. The Tony Wilson played by Steve Coogan constantly calls attention to the fact that we are watching, that he is acting in, a film. When there is a difference of opinion on the events portrayed, he makes his case for his version on screen. This is not a prank; this is postmodernism.
So why would Banksy's prank (if it is a prank) be so particularly objectionable? Perhaps our feelings are hurt. Although his art has always seemed to have a puckish edge, we the in-crowd were never the butt of the joke. Other people were the squares who didn't get it, or took it too literally, or freaked over the illegality of it, or looked down at the vandalism and violation of private property. But we were on the level, and it sucks to be kicked out of the club in this cruel way.
As for me, though, I believe all of it. I believe that Mr. Brainwash's success was offensive to Shepard Fairey and Banksy, especially after all they did for Guetta. I believe that Guetta created every derivative piece of crap, and that he really believed what he was creating was art. And I believe these things because it makes for a much better story. If I was used, I have never been so happy to be used.
Either way, it's a great summer film.
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