Week 4 - Exit Through the Gift Shop

A giant blow has been struck to the fashion world this week as Grace Coddington put in her notice at Vogue after 30 years of working at the fashion stalwart. It only seemed right that I should watch one of the greatest documentaries of all time, The September Issue, to commemorate her work. Coddington achieved what only a handful of people can do in the fashion industry: longevity. Sure, a good-looking person can transition from model to actress, fashion designer, charity ambassador after the tickets stop rolling in, but can they go from model, to stylist, to writer, to creative director of Vogue, and stay there for actual decades? Usually not, but Grace Coddington did so with aplomb and, of course, oceans of style. She is a national treasure, and anyone who thinks they can take her place is mistaken.

It’s a giant swizz that I’ve already wrote about a film that I have seen before, only a month into this challenge, and so I shall write no longer of TSI. The other two films I watched were brand new to me, and surprisingly so. The first, Priscilla, Queen of Desert appeals to all of my interests: drag queens, road trips and 90’s Guy Pearce. This film did not disappoint, and I don’t honestly think it ever would have done. My final foray into cinema was another documentary, Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop. A film made at the apex of his popularity, this film begins life as a love letter to everyone’s favourite ASBO-dodging graffiti artist and grows into this snarling, frothing-at-the-mouth attack on today’s identikit counter-culture.

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Halfway through the Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is a patchwork quilt of interviews, found footage and gonzo-style promotion videos, the cameras flip from Banksy to his own documentarian, a man named Thierry Guetta. It is done as our omniscient yet sporadic narrator, Rhys Ifans, begins to regale the life of Guetta, leading up to his meeting with Banksy circa 2006.

It strikes me that Guetta probably likes Warhol. I reckon he sees himself as quite the Warholian millennial, documenting everything he sees in a bid to savour the culture within his time. And I would agree with the similarities, but this is not a compliment. He is Warholian in that he recycles other people's ideas and creations for his own gains; Guetta badly wants to be famous and so he holds the coat tails – or hoodie strings – of his contemporaries and then does explicit knockoffs of their work.

The film implies that the artists – Shepperd Fairey, Swoon and Space Invader to name three – are in solidarity with him, but it feels forced; it feels like he is that person in the group who is in the group purely as a scapegoat. There is a false integrity to him, like young men at 3am declaring their love for one another in the queue at Mighty Bites: it's all well and good you say that, Thierry, but I don't believe a word of it. And neither does Thierry.

The Elephant in the Roon, Banksy (2006)

The pieces look tame now. The Guantanamo mouse, the filigree elephant - these are bad tattoos on the shoulders of teen rebellion. I think Rhys Ifans thinks this too; we are only just missing Harry Hill glances to the camera as Guetta explains his subversive graphic art of Elvis Presley holding a toy machine gun. He's like Monsieur Hulot with behavioural issues; it’s all just a bit much. What was once an installation piece reflecting the death of conversation is now in the house of a billionaire, paid for by untaxed oil money. It never was about the money, Banksy says two-thirds into the film. But as we all know, that's only ever said by rich people.

People can argue that it's postmodernist art, that the simulacra that Mr. Brainwash (Guetta’s pseudonym) presented within his 200 creations are an expression of brainwashing itself. But that's simply not the case. The guy's an idiot trying to nail down a get rich quick scheme. And it fucking worked. Spoiler alert: he's now a fucking millionaire. Thirteen minutes from the end and I actually said out loud to no one at all 'I want him dead'. The only solace I have gained from this is that other people seem to have the same impression, including Britain’s favourite tagger, Banksy.

This film left me furious for myself, for fans of art and for the world's street artists who actually have talent and not just a cute vintage store in a gentrified LA suburb like the fedora-wearing, sentient haemorrhoid that is Thierry Guetta. He is the reason people do not like artists.

Films of the week: The September Issue; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Exit Through the Gift Shop