lune 4, 2014
Cip
^nrtlauh (Dbsertier
Page 9
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Alberta
North Portland
Finding
Vivian
Maier
Lf
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5«
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1
J 9 Ä -
Mindful curiosity
to an odd and
ordinary life
Shortly after I wrote my last Portland
Observer piece two months ago, I quite tragi
cally lost my life partner, Stan Thornburg.
(For those who are interested, I have written
about Stan's passing on my blog at opinion
ated judge, blogspot.com/2014/05/compli-
cated-grief). Among other things, my grief
journey has given me occasion to reflect on
the mysteries of the human soul - and, also,
on how remarkably wncurious people are
about each other. So it seemed fitting, on my
return to writing film criticism, to introduce
you to a lovely documentary — "Finding
Vivian Maier" — that probes those myster
ies with vigorous curiosity that some have
termed obsessive.
Five years ago, a young man from Chicago
named John Maloof posted several hundred
photos on Flickr that he had purchased in the
form of undeveloped negatives at an auc
tion.
A veteran flea-market miner of discarded
treasures since childhood, Maloof had an
instinct that he had stumbled onto some
thing, but cannily posed the question to the
internet: "What do I do with this stuff?" The
photos caused a stir, and quickly drew com
parisons to important street photographers
like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Helen
Levitt.
Maloof — who acknowledges that he is
"obsessive about stuff' - ultimately un
earthed 100,000negatives ofthe artist, Vivian
Maier, along with a roomful of the scraps of
memorabilia that she had collected over years
of hoarding before she died in her 80s. Maloof
missed Maier herself by a matter of months
(though he stumbled onto her obituary), but
he located many people who knew her, in
cluding the proprietor of a Chicago antique
shop that she frequented who termed Maier
"a real pain in the ass."
The documentary, which M aloof co-di-
rected with Charlie Siskel (nephew of Gene),
regards Maier with kindness, with wonder,
with respect for her talent, but also for her
individuality, for what she would have
Vivian Maier in one of her self-portraits.
wanted, for what made her tick.
Who was this woman, really? Why did
she take so many careful, beautifully crafted
photographs, and never show her art? Did
she recognize her talent? Was she lonely?
Was her French accent real? Was she Vivian,
Viv, Ms. Maier, or Miss Meyers?
"She was my nanny." Maier spent most of
her adult life as a nanny to a string of families
in Chicago's North Shore neighborhoods.
The picture that emerges is inconsistent.
Some of her now-adult charges describe her
as playful and attentive. A certain quirkiness
is evident. They remember the low-slung
Rolleiflex camera that always hung around
her neck. She took them on outings to the city
- but some of those outings included slums
or even the stockyards. And some describe
a woman who could be mercurial, or sharp, or
even unkind.
Her employers worried about her. She was
obsessively private, and seems to have
shifted her identity slightly with each family.
She demanded a lock on the door of her room
photo by V ivian M aif . r /M aloof C ollection
and forbade any entry. One of her former
charges remarks that she would never have
allowed for the fame that has followed the
release of her art.
Yet there is a k in d n ess, an open-
heartedness, even a capacity to connect that
shines through in her photographs. The
camera she used allowed her to photograph
from her midsection, while she evidently
maintained eye-contact with many of her
subjects, and she poignantly captures their
humanity. She was interested in the poor, the
odd, the marginalized. Many of her subjects
are people of color. Her pictures frequently
inspire a rush of love.
Maier took a lot of self-portraits, and they
continued
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