Why exit through the gift shop is a hoax

Its many nested put-ons finally enveloped him, recasting him as a huckster not so far removed from the integrity-bankrupt Mister Brainwash. That might be his most ingenious mischief of all; having found the one guy who would make him look profound by comparison. And now, an important investigation into one of horror's greatest mysteries. What else do you have going on today? He attended Fairfax High for about a year, despite speaking no English.

After dropping out, he said he started organizing nightclub parties in Hollywood that became popular with the celebrity set. He also got a job at a vintage clothing store in Venice, starting out on a ladder to keep an eye out for shoplifters. But he showed up early and stayed late, was promoted to manager and eventually bought out the owner, he said.

Between and the late s, records show Guetta launched a series of businesses with names such as Vintage Supermarket and Rugsaver: The Vintage Shop, his store on La Brea. Guetta said he imported cheap used clothes from France and repackaged them as designer vintage, occasionally selling them as templates to high-end designers like Ralph Lauren. He and his brothers also began designing clothes, sewing scraps of jeans into jackets and finishing them with Looney Tunes characters cut out of beach towels.

Eventually, Warner Bros. But rather than shut them down, Guetta said, the company hired them. The story was confirmed by Warner Brothers, whose consumer products executives recall employing the Guetta brothers to design products sold in the Warner Bros.

Studio Store in the s and eventually giving them a merchandising license. The relationship ended around By the late s, Guetta said he had lost interest in clothes and had no shortage of money.

Records show he bought a house on Mansfield Avenue, and a commercial property on Fairfax. He also purchased a video camera and began to film his young children. It was always vaguely understood, Guetta said, that the footage would some day become a documentary about the scene.

In , Guetta met Joachim Levy, a Swiss filmmaker, and the two started making edgy videos and websites for corporate clients. A month later, he launched a new business venture — 3E Entertainment. Maybe it's not. Either way, truth is a slippery commodity here, much like commodified art itself, and if that's the point, well, kudos - point taken.

Allegedly, the doc was made by Banksy who - this too is certain - is an actual street artist of real renown and carefully cultivated anonymity. We glimpse him, or perhaps someone purporting to be him, in the opening frames.

A hooded figure shot in low light and speaking with a rough English accent, he explains the film's subject: "It's about a guy who tried to make a documentary about me, but he's a lot more interesting than me.

That's debatable, since the guy in question is a dishevelled French expat living in California, Thierry Guetta by name, a rotund little motor-mouth whose lank, thinning hair is accessorized by a fat set of mutton chops.

Apparently, he once ran a clothing shop that sewed sequins onto cut-rate duds and sold them at exorbitant designer prices to rich Hollywood philistines, thereby paving the way for his next career move. Seems Thierry became a compulsive videographer, filming things much as he talks - obsessively, indiscriminately. Eventually, his subject matter grew to include celebrated street artists like his cousin Space Invader, and Shephard Fairey, the designer of that iconic Obama poster, and later Banksy himself.

We see footage of them making their stencils by day, then heading out at night to scale walls and climb buildings, spraying their accomplished graffiti under the cover of darkness.

These shots are fascinating. Eventually allegedly , Thierry tried to edit his accumulated mountain of tapes into a documentary about street art.