How Banksy's EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Film Really Came Together
If you haven't seen Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop yet, please find some time and watch it. I promise it's an incredible film that is worth your attention and time. This ended up being one of my favorite films of 2010. There's been a lot of controversy surrounding the film because some people believed it was fake, while others like myself did not. I always believed the movie was real, and if anyone still has any doubts some new information has come to light that proves everything was real. It was interesting to find out that this great movie was born out of deception, extortion and a lawsuit.
Pop culture artist Ron English gave some interesting insight on the film that I thought some of you might want to check out:
Here’s what actually happened: When we first met Thierry, he was supposed to be making a movie about Shepard. He was filming Shepard all the time, wherever he went. They made a deal, 50/50, we’ll make a movie. They shot for five years doing this, Shepard in his Spiderman prime, leaping off buildings and stuff. At the end of five years, Shepard says “Alright, let’s put the movie together,” and Thierry said “I’m not giving you the footage.” He’s actually quite smart and can be a little devious-he figured “I just took away five years of your fame,” because in his heart, Thierry always wanted to be the artist. He figured he was messing up his competition, in a way, and holding onto valuable footage. Shepard didn’t quite know what to do and filed a lawsuit against Thierry.
Then Banksy figured “I’m in the same situation, he has tons of footage for me.” He had some of the only footage of Banksy where you could actually see who he was. So he calls up Thierry and said “I’m sending you a first-class ticket to London, get on the plane, I have to talk to you.” That’s when he told Thierry that he would make a movie about him instead, in exchange for the footage, which Thierry turned over to Banksy. That’s when they realized that the footage wasn’t nearly what they thought it might be, but it turns out they did get a different sort of treasure trove, because you’ve got a portrait of this weird guy, Thierry.
He went on to say that the footage Guetta shot of Fairey was pretty much crap:
Banksy first thought that Thierry had a collection of the greatest street art footage ever filmed, that all these major moments had been captured, but when they looked at the footage they said ‘he had the camera pointed the wrong way almost every time.’
It's amazing to see how some things just come together and fall into place. Bansky was incredibly smart in getting this footage away from Guetta by playing on on his vanity. And regardless of how crappy the footage was that Guetta shot, this still turned out to be a hell of a great film.