Exit Through The Gift Shop [Sundance 10]

[modage]

Synopsis: Sundance has shown films by unknown artists but never an anonymous one. Banksy turns the tables on the only man who has ever filmed him, creating a remarkable documentary that is part personal journey and part an exposé of the art world with its mind-altering mix of hot air and hype. In the end, Exit Through the Gift Shop is an amazing ride, a cautionary modern fairy tale . . . with bolt cutters.

Buzz: Chud 9/10 Review

Teaser:

[72teeth]

Fuck yes,
i've been waiting for this...

[matt35mm]

I regret not seeing the Banksy show when I was in Bristol.  It was raining and there was an incredibly long line of people standing in the rain.  I probably would have gotten sick if I stood in the rain for 2 hours, but now I regret not doing it.

This is the (burp) regret that you make.

[Pubrick]

amazing title.

and matt havn't u heard of umbrellas and a coat?

and mod great new template for upcoming films, EVERYONE LEARN FROM HIS TEMPLATE.

[samsong]

loved it!  who else saw it?

[modage]

I did, loved it too!

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

This is probably the favorite of the year (so far, but it'll be hard to top).  It's informative without being condescending, incredibly entertaining and hilarious.

If you have the opportunity to see this, I would highly advise not missing it.  It's such a poignant example of what the value of art and expression is, but not in a degrading "art is hardly worth anything" way.  It examines the worth of art and how it should be available to everyone and also how those with money who are slaves to hype machines will look at art as bragging rights in ownership, not necessarily having any real relationship to the art itself.

Any other street artists here other than 03? (He was a street artist, right?) I can hardly claim to be one myself, but I frequently go on tagging runs with my graffiti artist friends who are much more proficient.  I've yet to decide on a name, so for now I just do small cartoonish designs.

[samsong]

at once a definitive street art doc, an essay on art vs. the art world, and meta-film con job (or was it all real?!) pulled off with uncanny finesse.  hilarious and addictive -- i found myself wishing it would never end i was having so much fun.  would make a great double feature with kiarostami's close-up.

as for where it lies in the scheme of my favorite films of the year, i'd have to give the edge to a prophet, though it benefits from having held up extremely well through multiple viewings.  vincere is also a great film.

a somewhat spoiler.  i guess.
it was especially amusing to me that thierry resembled a frenchy hipster incarnation of kubrick.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

vincere is also a great film.

Yes!  I was really surprised by the lack of thread for this.  I just assumed I couldn't find it and didn't want to make a new thread to say I liked it just to get redirected.  A bit much of the stock footage, but at times it really made the scene.  Powerful performances all around, though.

[Pubrick]

vincere is also a great film.

Yes!  I was really surprised by the lack of thread for this.  I just assumed I couldn't find it and didn't want to make a new thread to say I liked it just to get redirected.  A bit much of the stock footage, but at times it really made the scene.  Powerful performances all around, though.

well now that you know there's no thread for it maybe you can make one so we can know what the hell you're talking about.

[Captain of Industry]

This isn't even my favorite artdoc of the year (Art of the Steal) but I agree with everyone who says it's entertaining (in the beginning).  The contributors were too self-aware and the story was too superficial for my tastes, for me to love it.  I felt a little sick at exactly the moment when the CBS studio was rented out, from there until the end of the movie, because from there on it's thematically repetitive anyway.  I yawned some.

[Ravi]

I felt a little sick at exactly the moment when the CBS studio was rented out, from there until the end of the movie, because from there on it's thematically repetitive anyway.  I yawned some.

This half of the film raises some questions that are only explicity brought up at the end and not really explored.  Like Banksy mentioned at the end, Thierry's art ended up looking like everybody else's.  And people ate it up.  Is it that easy?  Make stuff that's an amalgam of Warhol and a bunch of street artists and open a gallery?  That would have made an interesting doc on its own if it had explored these themes.  As it is, the subjects (both the street artists and Thierry and his tendency towards obsession) are fascinating, and the film is entertaining, but its missing something that would have pushed it into greatness. 

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

But the film mostly attempts to chronicle Mr. Brainwash's rise to fame.  I think the questions it provokes are more solid than the answers it would suggest.  Even in the end, the interviewed people still can't make heads or tails of MBW's acclaim.  He just had a knack for the game and he played it.  In a sense, he exposed the stupidity and arbitrary power doled out to artists based more on hype than any sort of merit.

Which works incredibly with street art and how you essentially are paid nothing for it, and to do graffiti is illegal (or as Banksy says "a legal gray area").  These are true artists paying for supplies that don't pay back for themselves and ultimately putting themselves in jeopardy to produce some art and put it up for people to see for only a couple days.

Is art only what people have thoroughly critiqued and learned to appreciate through hive mind mentality or is it something that can simply be appreciated for what it is on a person by person basis?

[Stefen]

Saw this tonight at the local art house. Epic trolljob.

[Gamblour.]

And people ate it up.  Is it that easy?  Make stuff that's an amalgam of Warhol and a bunch of street artists and open a gallery?  That would have made an interesting doc on its own if it had explored these themes.  As it is, the subjects (both the street artists and Thierry and his tendency towards obsession) are fascinating, and the film is entertaining, but its missing something that would have pushed it into greatness. 

I work at a coffee shop, and there is art on the walls curated by a local gallery. Recently, a guy took hundreds of paint-by-numbers portraits of Jesus and other kitschy stuff (sad clowns, happy clowns, women with big hair, scene views of lakes) and wrote in bubbly childish scrawl things like "Christ loves a crackhead" or "Gob is goob" or "Nothing harder than a preacher's dick" or "Got wood?" and other really, really, really meaningless stupid shit. The overall scope was pretty massive, interesting to look at, but even as a whole, the show was fucking atrocious and a real cheap, lazy display of childishness and a lack of intelligent analysis of religious images.

And people fucking ate it up. All the suburbanites who come down on the weekends laughed and loved it. Even local people thought it was real controversial and 'edgy'. He sold a few, thankfully not too many.

But yes, after seeing this movie tonight and fucking loving it, I was reminded of this shitty artwork and I 100% believe MBW could have built that hype and sold those pieces on his own. Maybe he had a little funding from Banksy, more than just a push. But it seems very much like MBW's motivations were still his own and his awful vision was still fully his. His art seems like a big 'fuck you' to Banksy and folks without meaning to be necessarily, so I guess this movie is their 'fuck you' back to him.