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Plot |
Initially this story is about John Maloof who on occasion bids on the contents of storage lockers. One day he saw some boxes that caught his fancy and won them in an auction. To his surprise he found a wondrous collection of photos. Soon he retracted his steps and located everyone who purchased boxes from the same storage locker that he had and when all was said and done he had over 100,000 photos, films and audio cassettes. Then came the painstaking task of scanning and documenting everything he had purchased. When Maloof discovered what he found belonged to Vivian Maier he was at first puzzled that he could not learn anything about her online. Impressed in the quality of Vivian Maier’s work Maloof began posting her photos over the internet. This sparked an incredible curiosity into this mysterious photographer and a desire for more of her work that Maloof gladly supplied the best he could, but the task proved to be too massive for him to handle alone. With added help Maloof began displaying Vivian Maier photos in a number of cities and continued to delve into her past. He learned that Vivian Maier worked as a nanny and began interviewing the kids - now adults - that she took care of. Every step of the way through the documentary we are shown dozens and dozens of photos taken by Vivian Maier. Sometimes they are one at a time and sometimes they are whole sheets of photos. Several of them are selfies of Vivian Maier capturing her image off of a reflection. Apparently Vivian Maier used a type of camera that hung from her neck and rested on her chest. She looked down into the viewfinder to take someone’s photo and didn’t have to lift the camera at her subjects so she could go around mostly unseen before anyone could do anything. Most days she would take the children with her on walks on the seedy side of town to get colorful shots. She would even snap shots into trash cans. When Vivian Maier wasn’t working she would travel and when she did she would take her camera. Maloof examined these photos and was able to locate her home town and learned that Vivian Maier’s mother was a photographer too. |
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Character Development |
Vivian Maier is the subject of this documentary. Very little is known about her in the beginning of the film other than she has taken an incredibly large number of photos. During the course of the picture this mystery women becomes much less of a mystery and the makers of this film travel back in time and find her home town and family, which is interesting because in the telling of the story Vivian Maier supposedly referred to herself as a spy and would repeatedly hide her identity and use various spelling of her name so it is a wonder that the makers of this film could unmask her. |
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Acting |
No acting. This was a documentary. |
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Overview |
I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this film and now I don’t think I can say enough good things about it. This film is probably the saddest and most hopeful experience I can remember in recent history. It would be like Stephen King dying tomorrow without publishing a word and me finding a storage locker with all of his writings that I just purchased for $200. I publish what Stephen King wrote and Stephen King becomes a house whole name, but wouldn’t it have been great that Stephen King got some of that credit while he was still alive. |
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