Finding Vivian Maier Review
By David Kempler
She Was Lost, But Now She's Found
Discovering a great new artist is exhilarating, but "Finding Vivian Maier" is not just about discovering a great new artist. For one thing, Vivian Maier is discovered posthumously. Secondly, she made no attempt to ever be discovered while alive. Then throw in that she was a working nanny and it all becomes more unusual.
Her photography is discovered by John Maloof, a man who purchases an anonymous box of negatives for $380 at an auction. He has no idea what he bought, but while going through the negatives, he discovers that he has something that might be very special. He knows that he loves the photography, but he has no idea who the photographer is. "Finding Vivian Maier" is his trek to figure out who took these photos.
The first thirty minutes concentrate on Maloof as he obsesses over the negatives he has purchased. He develops some of them and realizes that the photographer took pictures of ordinary people in the streets of the American northeast. Most of the pictures are close-ups, indicating that the subjects were usually aware their picture was being taken. The photos are also of great quality.
We learn about Vivian Maier through the people who knew her, even though none of them knew her all that well. Most of them employed her as a nanny, and while they knew she always had a camera with her, they didn't know the extent of her usage of that camera. She would take the kids she was in charge of to urban areas, some of which were on the seedy side. Vivian had the unique ability to make total strangers feel comfortable when faced with her camera. The results are a vast and great collection pictures of ordinary people in the middle of leading their ordinary lives.
The only negative is the presence of Maloof pushing to make money off his find. I don't blame him, but I had little interest in watching that aspect. It's still a good thing for the rest of us that he found Vivian. Shame that it was too late for her.
