Real estate agent John Maloof explains how a trip to a local auction house, in search for old pictures to use for a history book about his neighborhood, resulted in him bidding and winning a box full of old negatives. John goes through the massive quantity of negatives, describes how impressed he is by the quality of the images, becomes quickly determined they are not reverent to his project and just puts them away. That could have very likely had been the end of the story, if the power of the images had not pushed him to fall in love with photography. John confides that his photo hobby quickly motivated him to set up a darkroom and devote large amounts of time shooting. As he learned more about photography, he recognized that those negatives he had bought, then stored, were the work of a real master. In an attempt to confirm his suspicion, he selected about 100 images and put them online with the hope that the feedback would confirm his judgement as to the strength of the images. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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The film opens up cutting between footage of a handful of people, each in their home, and each pensively waiting to be interviewed. The brief snippets shown clarify that each will be speaking about their recollections of the same woman, as a part of finding insight into the mystery.Switch to the filmmaker,John Maloof explaining how a trip to a local auction house, in search for old pictures to use for a book history of his neighborhood resulted in him bidding, and winning a box full of old negatives. John, goes through the massive quantity of negatives, describes how impressed he was by the quality of the images, quickly determined they were not reverent to his project and just put them away. That could have very likely had been the end of the story, if the power of the images had not pushed him to fall in love with photography. John confides that his photo hobby quickly motivated him to set up a darkroom and devote large amounts of time shooting. As he learned more about photography, he recognized that those negatives he had bought, then stored, were the work of a real master. In an attempt to confirm his suspicion, he selected about 100 images and put them online with the hope that the feedback would confirm his judgement as to the strength of the images. He got his conformation!Mr. Maloof had the artistic vision and business savvy to go back to that auction house, track-down others that had bought Vivians negatives that day and buy them all, returning the collection to whole. The amount of images was truly astounding, an total over 100,000, and unlike todays digital world, she was shooting primarily with a Rolleiflex Camera, a roll of 120 film holds 12 images.In addition to the film, John found receipts, notes and just enough information to attempt to find out who was this prolific mystery woman? Interestingly, it was not that difficult to discover who she was and people that knew her, the secret was that she had been a masterful artist. Everyone knew her as the slightly odd, but rather nice nanny.

- Lane J. Lubell of Cinemashadow.com

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munnh from Chicago
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I saw Finding Vivian Maier last night and thought that the movie was very interesting and riveting. I've been following the story of Vivian Maier's photography ever since the story first appeared on PBS-WTTW, Chicago. At first pass, the story was lacking in general information about her, but the many 1950s/1960s street photos of Chicago (mostly) and New York City were wonderful. The photos, I think it's fair to say, took the international photo art world by storm.

After she died, the bulk of her photos and negatives were bought by John Maloof, a co-director of the movie. Vivian Maier's personal and photographic story, along with John Maloof's story relative to purchasing the photos and fleshing out information on Ms Maier are the subject of the movie and the two interwoven stories are most interesting.

Interviews of those that knew her or her work are in the movie, many of her photos are shown, as are shows of her photos.

I, like the previous reviewer, would like to see the movie again. If it comes out in CD or similar form, I'd be a buyer.

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rxfore from Planet ScottT
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This documentary is one of a kind. The story of an eccentric, possible mentally ill mystery woman and her prolific photographic work. If the move was just about her art, it would be extraordinary, as her work was. The story of her bizarre and secret life just enhance the film. For a first time effort from John Maloof, this one is very well done. The film starts with those who knew her, openly expressing their amazement to her unknown and mysterious life as a street photographer, filled with the images she kept a secret from everyone. You wonder how someone with her talent could keep it a secret for so long. Maloof plays a significant role in front of the camera as it is necessary for him to tell the story. When it is over, you are still left with a sense of disappointment. You know more about this mystery woman, yet you still crave for more..............And, the images still haunt you. This is one movie I will see numerous times.

The showing I attended had Jeff Garlin participate in a Q & A. It was entertaining as he detailed the process and effort Maloof put in to make this gem of a documentary.

The added bonus was my friends brother was in the film. Very exciting.

Please see this film if you can. Please see the photography of Vivian Maier if you can.

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Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.
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Though we know very little about some of the great artists of the past, many say that it is not important because we have the works. Yet the world still longs for knowledge about the living, breathing human being, the man or woman behind the name on the painting or the title page. This element of mystery is what makes John Maloof and Charlie Siskel's documentary Finding Vivian Maier so intriguing, yet also leaves us wanting to know more. The subject of the film is an unknown photographer whose art has been compared to the masters, though she never exhibited her work and little is known about her life.

The photos, discovered by Maloof, display a segment of society invisible to many in the 1950s - the old, the poor, the black, the young, and the disenfranchised, a kaleidoscope of stunning images that poignantly capture the faces of humanity with humor and rare sensitivity. The story begins with John Maloof reporting how he purchased a box of negatives at an auction in Chicago in 2007 for a book he was working on. Told that the photographs were by Vivian Maier, he did not recognize the name and could find nothing about her on Google. After stashing the box away for two years, Maloof decided to scan some images and post them on Flickr.

Writing on the website that he had about 30,000 negatives of Maier's work that cover a period ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s, he requested direction, asking whether the photos are worthy of an exhibition or a book. Shortly after that, an article appeared in a British newspaper and the Chicago Cultural Center presented an exhibition of her work in 2011. Kickstarter provided the funding and this documentary began to take shape. Still digging for more information, the second half of the film is devoted to discoveries the director made about Maier and they are not all pretty.

What we do know is that Maier was born in 1926 and spent some time in France before working as a nanny for upper middle class families in the Chicago suburbs (including a brief time with Phil Donahue). Always dressed in an old-fashioned suit, Maier would walk through streets and alleys with the children she cared for, snapping black and white photographs with her Rolleiflex camera that she held down by her waist. Interviews with past employers and grown children, though often contradictory, reveal a private but very complex individual with strong opinions that she did not hesitate to share. They also indicate that she had a dark side and her reported bizarre behavior may have indicated serious emotional problems.

There are also stories about her room being filled with newspaper as high as the ceiling, that she used a fake French accent (though some do not recall any accent at all), and changed her name with each family she worked for, often giving phony names. One woman remembered that Maier told her that she was "sort of a spy." Some of those interviewed have more upsetting memories about coercion and bullying, but the film does not dwell on them, nor provide anyone to either counter or corroborate them. We do learn, however, that when Vivian was much older, two of the children she cared moved her into an apartment and finally into a nursing home where she died in 2009.

Unfortunately, neither of these loving children was interviewed, leaving a tantalizingly vague idea of who she really was. Though admittedly he has a commercial interest in its promotion, Maloof has done a public service by making the world aware of the work of this great artist and has been willing to spend an enormous amount of time and money in the process. Though this has resulted in her work now being displayed in galleries all over the world, the question of why her photographs have not been accepted by the Museum of Modern Art is left unexplored.

The bigger mystery - why she chose to withhold the photos from the world, of course, is still unknown and the film sheds very little light on this puzzle. Like last year's Searching for Sugar Man, a documentary about Sixto Rodriguez, another unknown but very talented artist, Finding Vivian Maier is a fascinating ride. Unlike Rodriguez, however, Vivian Maier will never hear the applause.

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nathan-56 from San Francisco
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This film covers the fascinating discovery and commercializing of one of the un-seen masters of 20th century photography.

You probably want to start with the BBC documentary about Vivian Maier before watching this one, called The Vivian Maier Mystery. It has more facts, and research, and explains what is known about her life in a definitive fashion. The BBC film also presents multiple viewpoints on key topics, and was not financed by the company that sells her prints.

That said, the tale as told in Finding Vivian Maier is good reality TV drama, and has more of an emotional tug -- and really makes you want to go out and buy some of this artists' work.

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aharmas from United States
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Documentaries have an interesting way of touching souls. They are particularly effective because they're based on reality, and when they're well made, one appreciate the art behind the camera, and the full impact of the qualities of the subject matter. Last year we had "Blackfish", and I can recall others that were so effective that led to changes in the way we see and do things.

"Vivian" certainly raises a lot of questions because of the way it is structured. There are surprises and revelations, and they all ring true, not fabricated or biased, as it is the case of so many documentaries and Hollywood films which are produced by people who believe the subject matter is enough to have something special. "Vivian" introduces us to a unquestionable talent, one shaped by mysterious forces and incidents we might never really know or understand but presented in such a way that we might never forget who or what we have seen.

A photographer finds an incredible amount of photos, films (developed and undeveloped), and the trigger is that the artwork is unquestionably beautiful, haunting, special, and begs the audience to inquire how and why it was made. Through some careful detective work, we soon find the identity of the artist. The initial discovery raises more questions because of the quality of the work and the profession of the woman who took the pictures. She is revealed to be a nanny and a caretaker.

As layers are removed and more information is provided, we see a complex and mysterious individual who had the obsessive need to document what she saw, and with the help of a very good camera, an excellent eye for visual composition, and some interesting emotional baggage, we put together most of the puzzle.

The documentary takes you through interviews of some of the children she took care, the impressions she made along the way. How she was an imposing and puzzling character, creating an aura of distance, but not being able to remain neutral. Her personality was too strong and her emotions so powerful, they were hard to ignore. Interviewees show their affection, the way she made a difference in their lives by exposing them to a truly complex nature, a woman so different from what most expected. She dragged children through remote parts of town, driven by an impulse to study the darker side of society. Vivian was attracted by forces many would rather disregard. She look for frowns, flaws, pain, darkness and with the help of her camera, made them beautiful, alluring, attractive, and powerful.

The last third of the film shows her personal background, and though we know more than we did one hour before, we still are left with holes in the stories. They are meant to remain that way because in Vivian's eyes, the work and ideas were important enough to reflect her thoughts and questions, but she wasn't ready to share them with the world, much the way she kept her personal distance, she might have believed the world was not ready for her contributions, or she lacked the confidence to offer them to us.

What is obvious by the end of the documentary is that she is now making a mark in the world, and people can recognize that her soul is in her work, a soul that appreciated, feelings and emotions other fail to recognize or are bound by their own limits. She had no audience expectations and crossed barriers. There is the sadness and joys of a child's eyes, the weight of the world in those denizens she captured at a special time. The most intriguing subjects are those who know they are being photographed and are under her spell, willing to let souls connect for a few seconds. Just like her subjects, which remain a mystery to us, like Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", Vivian also manages to remain somehow enigmatic, yet fully human and quite a special artist and human being.

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SnoopyStyle
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John Maloof buys one lot of photo negatives at a local auction house for $380 in 2007. He's looking for old pictures of Chicago to put in a picture book. He purchases the rest of the negatives from the other buyers and finds out after goggling that she was actually just a nanny. Her works find recognition as Maloof starts displaying them. She was also a pack rat and he pieces together her life from all of material she saved up. She seems like an eccentric private person who took pictures all the time. She would even bring her young charges to the slums to take interesting photographs. He continues to dig into her life and finds some fascinating mysteries.

First off, the pictures look beautiful. I really like the photos of people especially. Shooting from below gives a majesty to the subjects. That's the hook. Then there is the mystery of the nanny. It's a fascinating reveal as Maloof interview some of Vivian's charges. The fact that she seems to be alone raises the mystery factor. The only drawback is Maloof himself. There is probably some self serving purpose going on here and he's not the best narrator for the purpose. However I'm just drawn in by this private woman. I find her fascinating.

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Sergeant_Tibbs from Suffolk, England
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Stories of posthumous success are always interesting. Rarely have they been on the scale of Vivian Maier, whose body of work proves that her perspective of the streets is not a fluke. The pictures are staggeringly good yet modest. She had a talent, if not one for printing and promotion. Elusive artists, ones who do it for their own satisfaction, are pretty fascinating. You think art should be one of those things that begs as much attention as possible. That was Vivian's enemy. Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, director John Maloof knows how to spread the word. Upon finding her photos and setting up galleries for them, he set out on a journey to find out more about her. He probes into all her facets. Her brilliance, her quirks, and her flaws. Perhaps Maloof shouldn't have had the gall to include himself, but he acts as an antithesis to Vivian. Almost an antagonist to her goal. It's a great dynamic that guides the film in a great way. Thoroughly entertaining, enlightening and engaging documentary with a beautiful score to boot. Finding Vivian Maier is easily of the best documentaries of the year.

8/10

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stillComputing from United States
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This is a very good movie. It starts by the accidental discovery of the negatives of what turns out to be a very talented photographer. You slowly learn more. There is a darker side, and you soon find yourself immersed a bizarre world--a journey of following Vivian Maier's discarded gems, photographic and other, as well as emotional debris and dark alleys that echo of the unthinkable. A woman so capable at looking at us and revealing truth, yet carefully masks herself behind which must certainly be the workings of the mental ill. The movie does a unique job at letting your experience how greatness and mental illness can coexist; in fact, perhaps her greatness is a result of the mental illness.

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planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
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"Finding Vivian Maier" is one of the strangest documentaries I've seen in a very long time. Strange, however, does not mean it's bad--the movie is one that surprised me with how much I was drawn into this highly unique woman's life. And, it's just debuted on Netflix in case you'd like to give it a try, as it's amazingly original and worth your time.

When the documentary begins, a young and rather unusual young man, John Maloof, talks to the camera to explain how he came to know Vivian Maier. One day, a huge box full of photographs was being auctioned off and he bought it on a lark. It turned out that the pictures were amazingly good photographs of various everyday people taken in the 1950s. However, the pictures had a very artistic touch and it was obvious that the photographer was no novice---they had the eye of a wonderful artist. Armed only with a bit of information, John began researching for more on this woman. To his surprise, he learned that this Vivian Maier was a governess and maid--not a professional photographer. However, the story soon gets MUCH stranger. It turns out that there is a storage unit filled with her belongings and Miss Maier has recently died. And, with no apparently last of kin, Maloof buys the contents of the unit. Inside are boxes and boxes and suitcase after suitcase filled with approximately 100,000 photos taken from 1951 up towards the present. And, in addition, are many, many roles of undeveloped film-- and who knows what wonderful treasures are on these films?

The film, however, does not just talk about her photos or qualities as an artist. Instead, John goes on a journey to try to find people who knew Vivian in order to help him assemble her life story. What he finds is often contradictory, quite confusing and, above all, very strange. It seems that Vivian really had difficulty connecting with people and didn't remain on her jobs very long. She also created a persona of a French woman--though it turns out she was born in New York! Additionally, aside from one family with which she worked for about six years, most of her jobs seem to have lasted only a few months or perhaps a year (this was the case with Phil Donohue's family back about 1970--yes THAT Phil Donahue)! The reasons are not simple to explain without seeing the film, but could be boiled down to the fact that she was, as one person put it, a 'damaged person'--with so much emotional baggage and weird behaviors that she was unable to really connect with others. She could not allow herself to be physically or emotionally touched by others and her photos are a possible unusual way of connecting with the world. What else do you learn? Well, see the film--as the story takes many unusual twists and turns. Overall, it's less like a biography and more like a forensic case where some people are trying to re- create a dead person by interviewing all those who knew her during her odd life as well as using Maier's own photographs, film footage and audio tapes. And, what's really unusual is that most of the people she knew seemed to have no idea that she was a great artist...as she took this secret to her grave.

Fascinating....this is probably the word that best describes this film. You just have to see it to believe it and although many might think twice about seeing a documentary or a film about a strange eccentric, I heartily recommend you give this movie a chance. You won't regret it.

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Roland E. Zwick (magneteach@aol.com) from United States
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The documentary "Finding Vivian Maier," written and directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, tells the fascinating tale of a woman who lived and died in obscurity - then, through a serendipitous fluke of fate and an undiscovered talent for photography, became well known and celebrated long after her death. So much so that they even went and made a movie about her.

The saga began when Maloof, a young historian/filmmaker, bought a box of negatives at an auction in 2007. The negatives, it turned out, belonged to a woman named Vivian Maier, born in 1926, who had spent most of her adult life taking pictures of the world around her - more than 150,000 of them to be exact. Vivian never shared her work with the people in her life, even though the images were of a quality to rival some of the world's greatest and most famous photographers. Intrigued by what he had unearthed - the treasure trove included many 8 MM films as well - Maloof decided to re-create the life of this talented woman by seeking out those who knew her and using their knowledge of her to help piece it all together. It seems that Vivian spent her life as a nanny to the well-off families of Chicago; in fact, she was hired by no less a figure than Phil Donahue to look after his four children for a short time.

Through the movie, there emerges a portrait of an eccentric, intensely private woman, who never married and was seemingly devoid of family, who kept her personal background a secret, frequently used pseudonyms, affected a phony French accent (despite the fact that she was a native New Yorker), voiced strong opinions on politics and society, and traveled the world with only a camera for a companion, continually documenting, through both stills and film, the world as she and few others saw it.

One of the interviewees describes Vivian's work as reflecting "the bizarreness of life, the incongruencies of life, and the unappealing- ness of human beings." Yet, what comes through most vividly in her work is its humanity, her ability to capture the essence of people from all ages and walks of life in a single moment in time.

However, if you thought "Finding Vivian Maier" would turn out to be one of those unalloyed "feel good" movie experiences, you'd be sadly mistaken. For not everything we learn about the woman behind the camera is uplifting, charming and inspiring. In fact, the movie takes a decidedly dark turn in the latter half, as a number of the children she oversaw recount some of the abuse - both physical and emotional - they suffered at her hands.

She is described by some who knew her as "damaged" and "past eccentric,' riddled with mental illness, paranoia, and a compulsion for hoarding.

She became more and more isolated from the world as she entered old age, reduced to dumpster-diving for food. and becoming increasingly reliant on the kindness of strangers before death finally came for her in 2009.

Yet, now her work adorns the walls of many an art gallery the world over, as ever-increasing legions of admirers come to appreciate her talent.

For all its speculation, the movie demonstrates at least a certain amount of self-awareness by admitting that it may be a trifle unfair to judge a person and the life she led based entirely on how others saw and felt about her, without the person being given a chance to clarify or defend herself.

In a way, Vivian Maier is a stand-in for all the nameless, faceless people who surround us unnoticed, the vast majority of people who live their lives in relative obscurity and leave little real mark on the world after they're gone. Except, thanks to the fickle finger of fate and her own unique talent, Vivian did leave a mark, one that will be admired and appreciated for generations to come.

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AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Canada:PG (film festival rating) / Germany:o.Al. / Hungary:12 / Ireland:12A / Netherlands:AL / New Zealand:PG / Singapore:PG / Switzerland:16 / USA:Not Rated