Exit Through the Gift Shop- Documentary or Mockumentary?

This was a very cool film, kind of confusing at times but when you get to the end it all kind of comes together. I get the feeling that although Banksy was credited as Directing this film, he was more of a Producer, because the reality is that most of the footage was shot previous to his involvement. He basically saw the opportunity to take what Mr. Brainwash had already done, which was total crap, and mold it into what he eventually used as the final product of "Exit Through the Gift Shop." I think that Banksy saw his opportunity when he realized that Mr. Brainwash was a completely un-original fool... his use of a camera was purely a result of his Obsessive-Compulsiveness and there was no genius there whatsoever.

I think Banksy was thinking, "Wow, this guy is totally retarded! I wonder if I can make him a star? I wonder if people will know the difference?" Banksy knew if he pointed him in the right direction, Mr. Brainwash would do the most obvious thing, which would be to rip-off all the artists he had been filming, and basically regurgitate their artwork, re-package it, and resell it as a new form of art. This is demonstrated when Mr. Brainwash was designing his art show, and the professionals were getting very frustrated with him because he had no idea what he was doing, yet he wanted to be in charge of everything. I think at one point, one of the hired helpers even said "I think he's retarded!" and that "He wouldn't be working for him again."

Some of the footage that Banksy inserted into the film demonstrated this as well, such as the time when the black girl with sunglasses remarked while at the Art Show that she "hadn't seen anything so original, its nice to see good art" and "they said art was dead, but its not dead" or something like that. It's like the whole thing is a Mockumentary designed to poke fun at the industry, and how people are so gullible that that will believe anything is art. It was a great way for Banksy to compare and contrast himself, as a true artist, with someone that became well known and famous as an artist but actually has no originality or talent whatsoever. A good example of this is when people where interviewing Mr. Brainwash at his show, asking him about his artwork and why it appeared to be the same thing repeated over and over again. They were also asking why it looked like other artist’s work that was already out there. He simply replied, “It’s only Pop Art.” I think that was the most telling portion of the Documentary…