It's no secret that a lot of famous and talented people were also not very nice or suffered from mental disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar-ism: Picasso, Chanel, Schumann, Edgar Allan Poe, Van Gogh, Peter Sellers, Mel Gibson... So when I watched Finding Vivian Maier, I wasn't surprised to find out that such a talented photographer as she should also suffer from many personality and mental disorders: paranoia, fear of intimacy and men, hoarding, and worst of all, accusations of child abuse from her former charges.
The story of how her negatives were recovered and discovered and how they were turned into several exhibitions, a documentary, and book, was a heart-warming tale. But before we have even seen a hundred of her images, we are bombarded with the unsavoury side of Miss Maier's character, and I think this hurts her reputation before it was even made. I would liked to have had a more rounded story that more clearly defined her background.
Maier was an excruciatingly private person with a sense of history, and piecing together what has been pieced together was obviously difficult, however, whole parts of her life seem to be a blur. Her photographs date back to 1951, according to the voice-over, but then photos she took of a French village in 1949 are shown - so there are some discrepancies that needed to be addressed by a little more research.
The story of how her negatives were recovered and discovered and how they were turned into several exhibitions, a documentary, and book, was a heart-warming tale. But before we have even seen a hundred of her images, we are bombarded with the unsavoury side of Miss Maier's character, and I think this hurts her reputation before it was even made. I would liked to have had a more rounded story that more clearly defined her background.
Maier was an excruciatingly private person with a sense of history, and piecing together what has been pieced together was obviously difficult, however, whole parts of her life seem to be a blur. Her photographs date back to 1951, according to the voice-over, but then photos she took of a French village in 1949 are shown - so there are some discrepancies that needed to be addressed by a little more research.