Celebrity and Travel Photographs?

I just watched the film and the more I think about it the more I agree with you. They skipped over parts of her life which may have given us clues as to the person she really was.

Also, what about the two guys who found her an apartment (and paid for it) at the end of her life? It seemed like they also had something to due with her burial arrangements. Odd that they're not interviewed (were they asked? Did they decline?).

I attended the exhibit of Maier's work at the Cultural Center a couple of years ago and was impressed. She had a marvelous eye for compelling faces and composition. The documentary was quite strong for about 2/3 of the running time. I felt the focus on her deteriorating health later in life took too much attention away from the photography. Having so many children entrusted to her care over the years led me to assume that it was late in her life when eccentricities devolved into more serious issues. Fair or not, one of the later interviewees struck me having plenty issues of her own to deal with.

Good points regarding the celebrity and travel photos. I would like to see more of these. Her ability to travel widely and be allowed near the rich and famous suggests, to me, that her health was rather sound for much of her adult life, eccentricities notwithstanding.

I give Maloof a lot of credit for his dedication to the work and for locating one of her heirs. Here's hoping that a potential court case (a second heir has apparently been located) does not delay the October 28 release of this collection:

Vivian Maier: A Photographer Found

"The definitive monograph of American photographer Vivian Maier, exploring the full range and brilliance of her work and the mystery of her life, written and edited by noted photography curator and writer Marvin Heiferman and featuring 250 black-and-white images, color work, and other materials never seen before.

Vivian Maier’s story—the secretive nanny-photographer during her life who becomes a popular sensation shortly after her death—has, to date, been pieced together only from previously seen or known images she made and the handful of facts that have surfaced about her life. During her lifetime she shot more than 100,000 images, which she kept hidden from the world. In 2007, two years before her death, Chicago historic preservationist John Maloof discovered a trove of negatives, and roll upon roll of undeveloped film in a storage locker he bought at auction. They revealed a surprising and accomplished artist and a stunning body of work, which Maloof championed and brought to worldwide acclaim. 



Vivian Maier presents the most comprehensive collection and largest selection of the photographer’s work—created during the 1950s through the 1970s in New York, Chicago, and on her travels around the country—almost exclusively unpublished and including her previously unknown color work. It features images of and excerpts from Maier’s personal artifacts, memorabilia, and audiotapes, made available for the first time. This remarkable volume draws upon recently conducted interviews with people who knew Maier, which shed new light on Maier’s photographic skill and her life."

I dunno maybe I'm too much of a cynic, but I would question the amount of time, effort, and expense he invested into researching Vivian Maier.
Why did he buy out those auction lots he missed, who financed all the developing and printing, he mentions he was refused help from one museum and nothing more was said.
I think the motive was more than just curiosity, as he mentions he was brought up with buying and selling with his brothers.

She had 40 years as a nanny and 8 months on her trip around the world, so I'm not too upset about the lack of emphasis on that.

About the celebrity photos - there's an interview with one of the film-makers, Charlie Siskel, where he addresses that. They are asked if there was anything that they wanted to include that they hadn't. Maloof says no, but Siskel says: "CS: Well, one thing that we didn’t end up figuring out was that Vivian, along with all of these sort of journalistic endeavors that she was doing, would take these Weegee-like crimes scene photographs at night. She was roaming the streets as if she’d had a police scanner, finding these crime scenes and shooting the rough areas of town. And she’s also show up at press conferences or parades, documenting the goings-on. One thing we found a lot of, and some of which has been displayed but didn’t make it into the film, was that she would show up at movie openings in the press scrum. She’d be in there taking pictures as if she were a stringer. Taking pictures of John Wayne, Lena Horne, Audrey Hepburn. There she is clicking away as if she’s a member of the press corps. But we just never ended up fitting it in."