Exit Through the Gift Shop Page #6

---

And it's beautiful.

I mean, it's beautiful,

but it's in the closet.

Oh, yeah, here's the Ba...

here's a big Banksy.

That one's

from the show in L.A.

I saw Banksy, and I thought

he was a genius,

and every person I told

about him bought something,

like people who have Picassos

and, you know, Mondrians

and Paul Klee and...

God, I don't even know

who else.

They have...

I mean, serious collections.

So then these

famous auction houses,

all of a sudden,

they were selling street art,

and everything

was getting a bit crazier,

and suddenly, it had all become

about the money,

but it never was

about the money.

So I said to Thierry,

"Right, you have the footage.

"You can tell the real story

of what this art is about.

"It's not about the hype.

"It's not about the money.

"Now is the time.

You need to get your film out. "

NARRATOR:
Banksy had put Thierry

well and truly on the spot.

He now had to devise a way

to transform thousands of hours

of unwatched tapes

into the epic documentary

he had been promising

everyone for so long.

So we start working

in the back of my house,

doing some editing.

It was, like, kind of a vision

that I saw.

And the way that I made it,

I really did it

kind of the way,

you know, like,

when you have a bucket

and you have a lot of numbers

and you said...

you look in one,

and you open,

and you said,

"This is the number 12."

This is the way that I made it,

kind of way.

I used to... couple tape here,

couple tape here,

couple tape here,

couple tape here,

take a little piece over here,

a little piece of that,

a little piece of that,

and this is the way

that I made it.

Okay, now let's go back

a little bit

and do a review,

because...

Like, what I say:

I'm playing chess.

I don't know how to play chess,

but life is a chess game

for me.

NARRATOR:
The following spring,

Thierry returned to England.

I'm gonna do a flip.

NARRATOR:

All his years of filming

and thousands of hours

of material

had been crafted

into a 90-minute film

with the intriguing title

Life Remote Control.

He called up,

and he came to London

because he said

he'd nearly finished the film,

and he came round my house

and put the DVD on,

and he said, "This is it.

It's nearly finished. "

Um...

you know,

it was at that point

that I realized

that maybe Thierry

wasn't actually a filmmaker

and he was maybe just someone

with mental problems

who happened to have a camera.

It just seemed to go on and on.

It was an hour and a half

of unwatchable

nightmare trailers,

essentially like somebody

with a short attention span

with a remote control

flicking through a cable box

of 900 channels.

Peace to the whole world.

You have to keep an eye

on the big picture.

I told him I'd never seen

anything like it,

and I wasn't lying about that.

Yeah, I was faced

with that terrible thing

when somebody

shows you their work

and everything about it

is sh*t

so you don't really know

where to start.

He's like, "It's good,"

you know?

"It's good," you know?

"It's good. "

I mean, the thing is

that Thierry had

all this amazing footage

of all this stuff that,

you know,

in this tiny world

of street art,

was kind of important,

and it was

never gonna happen again.

So it felt right

to at least make something

that you could actually watch

about it.

So I thought, you know,

maybe I could have a go.

I mean, I don't know

how to make a film,

but obviously,

that hadn't stopped Thierry,

but I needed him

out of the way

in order to do it,

so I said,

"Why don't you go and put up

some more of your posters

"and make some art,

you know, have a little show,

invite a few people,

get some bottles of wine?"

And off he went

back to Los Angeles,

and he left me

with the tapes.

NARRATOR:
Thierry returned home

to Los Angeles

full of enthusiasm for

his unexpected new assignment.

Banksy had just given him

what he considered

to be a direct order:

to put down his camera

and become

a street artist himself.

I think he put me

into street art

because I like what he did.

Me, as respecting him,

you know,

having him to push you

to do street art,

I just went and, like...

it was not even a push.

It was, like, an enjoyment

to get pushed, you know.

NARRATOR:
So now, using the

formula he had seen work so well

for the world's

biggest street artists,

Thierry set about creating

his own alter ego

and iconic visual style.

I came up with the idea

that the whole movement of art

is all about brainwashing.

"Obey" is about brainwashing.

Banksy's about brainwashing.

So I use MBW,

and I am Mr. Brainwash.

NARRATOR:
But Mr. Brainwash

had some catching up to do.

Many of the biggest names

in the street art world

had moved on to gallery shows,

so Thierry now started

to plan the next phase

of his artistic career.

F***!

Film! Film!

Come closer.

Look at the pink.

NARRATOR:
When Banksy

had suggested to Thierry

that he make some art,

he could never have imagined

just how far things would go.

We have a mountain of...

NARRATOR:
Thierry had now

remortgaged his business

and sold off whatever he could

to invest in a huge studio,

screen-printing equipment,

and a full-time staff

capable of producing MBW pieces

on a commercial scale.

Just wait one second.

Okay.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

When you have Damien Hirst,

one of the most expensive

artists in our generation today,

and having 100 people

working for him,

do you think that he's gonna

come and cut little papers

and start to glue?

No.

I'm not gonna make it.

I'm just gonna come

with the idea and say,

"This is what I want,

and I want this like that. "

Thierry's creative process,

I guess,

he's inspired by other things.

I guess who isn't inspired

by other things?

We have, like...

look at this.

Like, he goes, and he, like...

four different-color Post-its

in here.

That means... no, five,

I think.

So he went through this book

four or five times

and, like, selected

different pictures,

wrote notes,

and they're all in, like,

fairly bad English.

Thierry goes through the books.

He finds the paintings

that he likes,

and he comes up with the ideas

on what to change them,

and we scan the image,

and then we Photoshop.

This one is Elvis.

It's, like,

a piece that I made.

It's, like, I changed Elvis.

He had a guitar,

and I put in a toy

from Fisher-Price.

You know, a toy

from Fisher-Price,

and this piece called

"Don't Be Cruel. "

And this is what I create.

It's, like, to trying

to do some lines

that,

when you're close to it,

when you're

really close to it,

you just see lines.

Any kind of people,

they come to the market,

and what they see?

Bar code.

They come to the thing,

so they leave with it.

They brainwash.

That's why I call myself

Mr. Brainwash.

It's because everything

that I do

somewhere brainwash your face.

This is one piece

that I really like,

kind of way,

and it says, "Bat Papi, 1893."

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes