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Exit Through The Gift Shop: (Banksy) via Guetta, (Guetta) via Banksy?
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Exit through the Gift Shop: (Guetta) via Banksy, not (Banksy) via Guetta
Trailer:
Exit Through the Gift Shop initially presents itself as a straightforward documentary about street artist Banksy, narrated and shot by a Frenchman named Thierry Guetta. Guetta is a compulsive filmer, traveling everywhere with his handheld video recorder. He turns his camera to the highly secretive world of street art, and captures extensive footage of the artists in action. He also begins his own experiments in steet art. He accrues hours upon hours of footage, and then realizes he does not know what to do with this footage. Banksy eventually realizes that Guetta is no filmmaker, but is an interesting subject to be filmed. The documentary’s subject then becomes Guetta, narrated by Banksy, still filmed in part by Guetta but also by other observers. The narrative inversion coupled with the representation of the two subjects, or perhaps 3 subjects (Banksy, Guetta, and street art) is the focus of my investigation, specifically how the film plays with the concept of reality, and why audiences reportedly felt ‘duped’ by the film.
The on-screen portrayal of the subjects is a good place to begin. We are introduced to Guetta and his family in their California home almost immediately, via Guetta’s footage. Guetta immediately is a very human presence, we see him playing with his kids, working at his shop, talking to his wife, and other mundane tasks of life. The effect is increased by the fact that he is the one holding the camera, controlling our perception of his subjects, surroundings, and life. However, at this point Guetta is both subject and non-subject; he appears on screen as an errant thumb in the camera lens or when he deliberately turns the camera on himself.
Bansky’s onscreen presence almost negates Guetta’s doubly represented self. His scenes are shot in a small, black room. His face is pixilated, no skin is visible, and his voice is almost laughably altered. The strong filters are purportedly to hide Banksy’s identity for security reasons, for most of his work in Britain is actually illegal. However, the strong filters and the fact that Banksy only appears on screen in that room, not ‘in action’, makes the viewer wonder, is this even Banksy?
Exit’s trailer bills itself as the world’s first ‘street art disaster movie.’ The third and uniting subject of the film, street art, is the medium in which questions of reality, representation and authenticity raised by the human subjects can be examined. Guettas first glimpse of street art occurs of course through his camera when he stumbles upon one of his relatives creating templates to be pasted around Paris. Guetta’s relative is constructing an interactive, ‘real life’ game of Space Invader by posting his templates on different elements of Paris’ built environment. The transformation of Space Invader from the computer screen to the city exhibits the ‘realness’ of street art, as playing the game now demands involvement from the physical world and corporeal body to play.
Guetta is absolutely captivated by street art, and begins to follow his relative on twilight posting expeditions around the city, in the process meeting many other street artists, including Banksy, under the implied charge that he with the camera was a documentary filmmaker. Guetta spends the next few years following and yes, filming the previously unseen mechanics of street art, compiling an impressive archive of footage. He then attempts to make his documentary, and produces a questionable result. Banksy realizes that Guetta is no documentary filmmaker, and turns the camera on Guetta’s attempts to be a street artist.
Guetta’s inability to synthesize his footage in a documentary form could be attributed simply to him being a terrible filmmaker, but I see his work as an autobiography. The filmmakers were dissatisfied with his portrayal of them and their work, a common complaint of those included in memoirs and autobiographies. Guetta’s film is his reality, and served as his memory, as a diary would for some. However, because of Guetta’s reading of his film as both reality and memory, he was unable to edit it into a story about others, because all he saw in it was himself. David Shields’ argument that ‘every documentary film, even – especially – the least self referential, demonstrates in its every frame that an artists chief material is himself’ (Reality Hunger, 153) is telling of Guetta’s struggle. His attempted documentary was in no way supposed to be about him, but his life is the footage, and the construction of the film using the footage, was a film of his life.
Banksy at this point in the flim realizes that Guetta’s story is perhaps more interesting than his own, and beigns to film Guetta’s efforts at street art. However, Guetta, going by the moniker “Mr. Brainwash,” simply takes street art or other commercial art he’s seen and changes it just enough to call it his own. Other street artists, including the ones he filmed, regard the work as unoriginal, un‘true’, and un-‘real.’ Street art is a philosophy, a lifestyle, a way of looking at the world – and Guetta’s street art was an object of no true value.
Interestingly enough, Guetta’s street art show, modeled to be better and more spectacular than any street art show ever was, attracted the most commercial attention and mainstream acclaim of any street artist’s show. This further proves the base commerciality of Guetta’s work, the un ‘real’-ness and betrayal of the form and philosophy.
Nearly all audiences and reviewers reported feeling duped or fooled in some way, with the New York Times calling Exit a “prankumentary.” I believe the audiences felt duped because they were expecting a straightforward, narrative documentary about the elusive Banksy and his street art. One review recommended readers ‘don’t think about the film, just enjoy it.’ However, when one does consider the questions posed about the nature of reality and relationships between the subjects Guetta, Banksy, and street art, it might help to have Shields in the back of your mind. Consider that documentary work is playing with someone else’s life and shaping it to fit the story you want to put forth, as Shields says, “part of what I enjoy in documentary is the sense of banditry. To loot someone else’s life or sentences and make off with a point of view, which is called objective because one can make anything into an object by treating it this way, is exciting and dangerous. Let us see who controls the danger.” Guetta attempted to do so with Banksy, but in the eyes of his subjects failed. Banksy did in fact ‘loot’ his effort, his footage, his life to put forth Exit, which above all is ultimately a meditation on reality, perception, and art.
Comments
shaping the autobiographical
pfischer--
You've got a fascinating subject here, and I think Guetta's film provides an excellent site for you to think about your triple topic: reality, its representation, and audience reception. What you might have done, though--to mitigate the "meteor effect" (of "this film just dropped in my lap") is to actually begin your discussion by framing it w/ the one we've been having in class: What is "reality"? Why do we "hunger" for it, and how is that hunger fed? These are some of the questions that Shields laid on the table for us; how does a new text, something we didn't consider as a class, Banksy's film, answer those questions? Does it actually feed that hunger?
I'm nudging you to make the motivating questions of this paper more explicit; I'd also like to see more explicit answers to them. You conclude by saying that the film is "ultimately a meditation on reality, perception, and art." But what I'd really like to know is what that meditation produced, in audiences such as yourself, in terms of answers to the questions our class has put forth. For starters: what is the operative definition of "real" in this text? (For example, if Guetta is both the subject and object of his own film, wherein lies the real?) Later, you say that the film "exhibits the ‘realness’ of street art," but you put "realness" in quotations. Does that suggest that the film puts the real into interrogation? Questions its--well--reality?
You talk also about "the base commerciality of Guetta’s work, the un ‘real’-ness and betrayal of the form and philosophy." Tell me more? Does being commercial mean not being real? (Or being more real, more down w/ what matters--the making of money?) And what's the relationship between such un-realness and commerciality and what you later celebrate, the "the sense of banditry" that comes w/ looting "someone else’s point of view"? Does theft make the work more or less "real"? (Again: in what sense?)
You say, likewise, that "Guetta’s film is his reality," but that "other street artists, including the ones he filmed, regard the work as unoriginal, un‘true’, and un-‘real.’" Once more: until I know what the real --the primary site of interrogation for the opening sections of this class-- is and means to you, none of these claims quite add up for me. Ditto the observation that "nearly all audiences" felt duped, "because they were expecting a straightforward, narrative documentary." Does such a thing exist? Given what you say about all work as autobigraphy, and so, I presume, biased? Tendentious?
My own main interests lie in the realm of representation, where you also hint @ some questions begging for answers. "Guetta’s inability to synthesize his footage in a documentary form," you say, "could be attributed simply to him being a terrible filmmaker, but I see his work as an autobiography." Do you mean that autobiographies are not works of art, not acts of synthesis? That they are unedited? If Guetta was, as you also claim, "unable to edit it into a story about others, because all he saw in it was himself," does that mean that there can't be any editing? or only that it will be bound--or @ least guided--by the ego of the editor? You pull in Shields’ argument that here that ‘every documentary film, even – especially – the least self referential, demonstrates in its every frame that an artist's chief material is himself’ --but I'm still not clear how that translates into any particular form. Once we acknowledge that all texts/films are autobiographies, we still have all sorts of unanswered questions about sorting and shaping and ordering the material.