With more pundits latching onto the possibility of “Exit Through the Gift Shop” taking an atypical (and for the Academy, potentially awkward) Oscar win on Sunday, the LA Times’s Jason Felch is raking one final comb through the question of the film’s authenticity.
With Banksy, Thierry Guetta (aka the film’s subject, Mr. Brainwash) and Joachim Levy (a filmmaker and collaborator of Guetta’s threatening to sue Banksy for insufficiently crediting his contribution to the project) all vouching for the truth of the events depicted in the film, no concrete reason has yet surfaced not to take it at face value — but doubts persist, largely because of Banksy’s own established reputation as an artistic prankster.
Some like to float the theory that Guetta is Banksy — one easily dashed by the former’s public records and the number of journalists who have, in confidence, interviewed the latter over the years.
While Felch makes no case against the film’s veracity, he does point out that whether or not the film is true has nothing to do with Guetta’s own artifice as an artist:
[I]t is impossible to prove whether his latest incarnation, Mr. Brainwash, is sincere. The film suggests that Guetta’s artistic alter ego is largely a creation of Banksy, a notion Guetta doesn’t refute.
“Banksy captured me becoming an artist,” the paint-splattered Guetta said, surrounded by the stacks of art books and pop-culture clutter from which his work is derived — or ripped off, depending on your view. “In the end, I became his biggest work of art.”
It’s for this reason that I think questions about the veracity of “Exit Through the Gift Shop” are beside the point. Whether the film’s flip in focus from Guetta as videographer to Guetta as naïf-artist was organic or stage-managed from the outset, its fundamental message — concerning the corruptibility of both art and its audience — remains unchanged and unaffected.
Like “Catfish” or even the confessed faux-doc “I’m Still Here,” the narrative and thematic body of the film exist independently of reality; if 2010 taught us anything, it’s that the documentary medium can split definitions of “non-fiction” and “truth.” There’s no reason to assume “Exit Through the Gift Shop” doesn’t cover both bases, but it’s an insightful and provocative film in any event.
[Photo: Producers Distribution Agency]
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5 responses to “Revisiting the veracity of ‘Gift Shop’”
It’s an interesting interview. I agree that it doesn’t matter if Guetta’s ascension in the art world is manufactured or not, the point is that he was shithouse and still managed to make money.
I really hope this gets up on Sunday. I watched Inside Job a couple of days ago. Though it is informative and well-made, it has neither the flair or originality of Gift Shop.
Well but see, here’s the problem.
If one has made his reputation by being anonymous, by doing things sub rosa, and by creating works that are at best on the margins of legality — it becomes very hard to believe you. And as strong as EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP unquestionably is, it does have a prankish air, invites a comic response, and involves subject-object rug-pulling.
No matter how firm the documents you present are, the stronger and more emphatic your statements become (“100% true”), the more people are inclined to think there must be something even deeper going on. As the LA Times writer noted, “coming from an unidentifiable artist whose work includes titles such as ‘I can’t believe you morons actually buy this …,’ such claims have only fueled the doubts.” This is particularly so in a population weaned on paranoid thrillers that “question reality,” in a world where up-is-down aesthetics is given a fair hearing, in a society that thinks “doth protest too much” is actually a serious argument.
I’m reminded of a clip I saw in an Andy Kaufman biopic in which he tells an audience he’s dying of cancer and it starts laughing; and he says “no, I am serious” and the laughter gets harder as Kaufman looks puzzled. This is lower stakes admittedly, but Banksy’s film and persona have painted him into a corner that he can never exit and from which he can never be taken not to be joking.
I find it interesting that of the three big docs that made documentaries relevant again (I’m Still Here, Catfish, Exit Through the Gift Shop) only one was nominated. And I can only hope ‘Exit’ wins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RDHk2-p_EA
Fitz: Interesting? yes. Suprising? not in the least. The doxumentary branch has always favored political or social issue docs over all others, but we can all sigh in relief that the best documentary of the year was nominated (even w/ the speculation that it’s fake). Although it’s easy to chalk up the argument that “Inside Job” plays more to the Academy’s taste, when has a film like “Gift Shop” ever been an option for them. I think the choice will be very obvious for them, but that may just be wishfull thinking.