Exit Through the Gift Shop Page #3

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- Do you understand English?

- Yes.

That's fine, sir.

I'm sure you can appreciate

graffiti's a criminal offense.

Right?

NARRATOR:
Thierry's documentary

was shaping up to be

the authentic inside story

of the birth of a movement

starring the biggest figures

in the street art world...

with one exception.

Now Tate Britain

in Pimlico

refused to discuss

security arrangements today

after a graffiti artist

known as Banksy

was able to leave

one of his own paintings

in the gallery's

landscape room.

I hear about this Banksy.

"Who's Banksy?

Banksy?

Banksy this. "

And I said,

"I really like that guy. "

You know?

And it's like,

"I want... I want... I want

to interview this guy. "

NARRATOR:
Thierry

wasn't the only one intrigued.

By now, word about

this mystery provocateur

and his increasingly

ambitious adventures

was radiating far beyond

the world of street art.

Banksy had started out

as a provincial graffiti artist,

but before long, his stencils

were appearing all over Britain.

Through a series

of DIY art shows,

Banksy was now taking vandalism

in an entirely new direction.

So I ask Space Invader.

I ask everybody that I knew.

"How can I get this guy?"

They said, "It's impossible.

It's impossible. "

But my focus in my head,

it was like,

"How am I gonna make it?

How am I gonna make it?

It's impossible,

but how am I gonna make it?"

NARRATOR:
While Thierry schemes

to find a way

to the one missing star

of his film,

his other subjects carried on,

letting Thierry capture

every moment

of their creative process.

What none of them suspected

was that Thierry's

street art documentary

didn't actually exist.

All the tape that I film,

even if it was good,

it was going nowhere.

It was going

in a box somewhere.

Sometime I don't

even write anything.

Sometime I write the year.

Sometime I write nothing.

But I would never watch it.

Never, never, never.

When it was filmed,

for me, it was done.

It wasn't important,

how it was made.

It was important what it was.

It was the capturation.

NARRATOR:
Thierry's

extraordinary habit

of filming everything

and locking the unwatched tapes

away in boxes

had its roots

in his childhood in France.

I lost my mother

when I was 11 years old,

and the day that I find out

about my mother,

I was at school.

I remember I was

in the playground,

and somebody come up,

and he says,

"Oh, you're laughing, eh?

You're laughing, eh?

You're laughing, eh?"

Like, behind the gate.

"Your mother is dead. "

Like this.

And after, I was like...

I didn't know, in reality,

and after I went back to class,

and I was crying,

and I didn't know.

And from that things,

they took me away.

I never went home again.

I went to a cousin or something

outside of what happened,

not to see anything.

You know, they just took me away

from everything happened.

NARRATOR:
The youngest

in a large family,

his mother's illness

had been kept from Thierry,

and after her death,

the sense that he had missed

such an important event

stayed with him.

Later, as an adult

raising his own family,

Thierry became

increasingly compelled

by the need to record the people

and events around him.

You know, I felt like I should

capture everything on film,

because I felt like everything

that I would capture

at these moments,

any time in my life

would be the last time that

I would see it the same way.

It was like a need

to be captured.

I would make them live forever,

those moments, you know,

forever and ever.

Making a documentary,

it was like having the key

of getting all these people.

That's why

I kept following them,

following them,

following them.

And because I never made

a movie before

and I don't know how to stop...

and I don't know

how to stop...

I kept going.

NARRATOR:

As Thierry persevered

with his quest to capture

the world of street art

in its entirety,

the profile of the one artist

who eluded him

was about to become

bigger than ever.

He faced Israeli army fire

to pull off his latest stunt.

Subversive graffiti artist

Banksy, whose work...

NARRATOR:
By targeting

the world's most notorious wall,

Banksy turned a spot

of hit-and-run vandalism

into an international

news event.

Now it seemed everyone

wanted to know the answer

to one question:

Who was Banksy?

His work seemed

to be everywhere,

but the artist himself

remained as elusive as ever.

He was, like,

the only one that I don't have,

and people

that used to be in street art,

they all tell you,

"Yeah, he doesn't have a phone,"

or they...

even if they do have it,

they wouldn't give it to me,

you know?

I didn't know what way that

I'm gonna get this person,

you know,

what angel was gonna bring me

to that person.

NARRATOR:

With no leads to go on,

Thierry was forced to accept

that he may never find a way

to the mysterious Englishman.

And then, miraculously...

So I went to Los Angeles

at about spring 2006,

and when I got there,

the guy that

was supposed to be helping me

got turned back

at immigration,

so I rang the only person I knew

in Los Angeles

and asked them

if they could help me,

and they said,

"Well, there's this French guy

"who's a cousin

of Space Invader,

"and he knows where

all the best walls are in L.A.

He can help you out. "

I was in downtown

Los Angeles one day.

My phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Shepard Fairey.

How are you doing, Thierry?"

"Uh, yeah. "

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. "

"Yeah, do you have any walls?

Because I have Banksy here,

and I would like"...

And I said, "What?

You have who?"

I'm like, "Uh... "

"Yeah, yeah,

there is Banksy here, and"...

I'm like, "Where... are... you?"

Red light.

I stay.

I vrrr...

I go through red light.

I was driving like crazy.

I mean, I'm lucky

I didn't get caught that day.

So this guy shows up

looking like something

out of the 1860s,

with these, like,

huge sideburns, sweating,

telling me

he could do anything;

he could take me anywhere;

he could get me

whatever I wanted;

he could fix it all up.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah,

like, what do you want?

"Anything you want.

What do you want?"

He said,

"Have you got a phone?"

And I said no,

so he went to a phone shop

over the road

and bought me a phone,

and he bought $100 worth

of credit

and punched his number in

and said,

"Right, this is my number.

You call me.

I have everything you need. "

"I drive you

if you need to go anywhere.

"I'll take care of you,

whatever, whatever.

"I'll be your driver.

"I'm not doing anything.

"I'm not doing anything.

I'm not doing anything

at any time. "

So on the understanding

that he would just help me

make some paintings,

we went out that evening.

NARRATOR:

Circumstances had conspired

to bring Thierry face-to-face

with the notoriously

secretive artist,

and fate remained

on Thierry's side

when he got his camera out.

Well, I'd never let anybody

film anything before,

but I said he could film me,

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