0 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:20,000 1 00:00:52,746 --> 00:00:54,989 Paradoxical. 2 00:00:56,791 --> 00:01:00,286 - Bold. - Yeah. 3 00:01:01,671 --> 00:01:03,490 Mysterious. 4 00:01:03,590 --> 00:01:06,960 - Eccentric. - Eccentric. 5 00:01:07,469 --> 00:01:10,914 - Private. - She was a very, very private woman. 6 00:01:11,014 --> 00:01:14,709 I never had any idea she took pictures. 7 00:01:14,809 --> 00:01:17,796 She would take photographs. Many, many photographs. 8 00:01:17,896 --> 00:01:20,382 She would never have let this happen. 9 00:01:20,482 --> 00:01:25,011 Is there anything that you wish you had done differently than... 10 00:01:25,111 --> 00:01:28,715 Sure. I wish I would have found those negatives instead of you. 11 00:01:54,557 --> 00:01:57,002 Ten dollars... Let's go harder. Ten bucks. 12 00:01:57,102 --> 00:01:59,421 Then I'll have to end in five. So can I have... 13 00:01:59,521 --> 00:02:01,673 It was winter 2007. 14 00:02:01,773 --> 00:02:04,301 I'll have to go seven, anyone at seven? Seven and a half. Ten. 15 00:02:04,401 --> 00:02:05,719 And ten, gotta go $10... 16 00:02:05,819 --> 00:02:08,805 The auction house is across the street from my home. 17 00:02:08,905 --> 00:02:13,268 I found this box that was loaded with negatives. 18 00:02:13,368 --> 00:02:15,729 $70. 75 there... $80. 19 00:02:15,829 --> 00:02:20,984 I was writing a history book, and I needed a lot of historic photos. 20 00:02:21,084 --> 00:02:24,529 And so I would, like, you know, take the negatives and I'd look up into the light, 21 00:02:24,629 --> 00:02:26,281 and I'd look for images of Chicago. 22 00:02:26,381 --> 00:02:28,116 150, 160... 23 00:02:28,216 --> 00:02:31,461 There were several boxes that went with the set. 24 00:02:32,303 --> 00:02:33,922 I just went for the biggest one. 25 00:02:34,322 --> 00:02:37,125 39 is your buyer, 39 is your buyer. 26 00:02:37,225 --> 00:02:39,677 I won it for, I think it was $380. 27 00:02:40,270 --> 00:02:43,673 The auction house told me the photographer, 28 00:02:43,773 --> 00:02:45,391 her name was Vivian Maier. 29 00:02:49,279 --> 00:02:51,723 Google searched her... nothing at all. 30 00:02:51,823 --> 00:02:53,524 I mean, absolutely nothing. 31 00:02:54,701 --> 00:02:57,228 So I just kind of gave up for a while. 32 00:02:57,328 --> 00:02:59,105 I looked at some of the stuff that night, 33 00:02:59,205 --> 00:03:01,691 and it was cool, but nothing worked for the book, 34 00:03:01,791 --> 00:03:04,027 so I just put it in the closet. 35 00:03:04,127 --> 00:03:07,080 I just had to figure out, what am I going to do with this stuff? 36 00:03:08,048 --> 00:03:11,292 That's what sparked me to start scanning it. 37 00:03:15,805 --> 00:03:18,750 I have a reflex, where we'll be driving somewhere, 38 00:03:18,850 --> 00:03:22,379 and I'll just, like, spot something from down the road 39 00:03:22,479 --> 00:03:25,223 that I know what it is and I know that it's valuable. 40 00:03:26,066 --> 00:03:29,010 I grew up doing the flea markets with my brother. 41 00:03:29,110 --> 00:03:32,230 My father did it. His father did it. 42 00:03:32,864 --> 00:03:35,767 I would do storage auctions with my brother. 43 00:03:35,867 --> 00:03:38,728 And he'd win some, and we'd clean 'em out. 44 00:03:38,828 --> 00:03:42,315 We threw out tons of negatives. 45 00:03:42,415 --> 00:03:46,494 Cos there's no value in negatives to most resale people. 46 00:03:48,338 --> 00:03:51,616 And these negatives that I discovered, what I saw at first, 47 00:03:51,716 --> 00:03:54,035 I didn't know if it was really good. 48 00:03:54,135 --> 00:03:55,996 I knew that I thought it was good. 49 00:03:56,096 --> 00:03:58,873 I contacted a couple of galleries. 50 00:03:58,973 --> 00:04:01,175 I didn't know where to go. 51 00:04:02,519 --> 00:04:06,097 I made a photo blog and I put about 200 images up. 52 00:04:44,477 --> 00:04:47,096 I put a link on Flickr. 53 00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:56,230 That post, it just went insane. 54 00:05:10,587 --> 00:05:15,416 So I went on this mission to piece together the rest of her work. 55 00:05:17,427 --> 00:05:19,662 And then, I found the other people who bought boxes, 56 00:05:19,762 --> 00:05:21,289 and I bought their boxes. 57 00:05:21,389 --> 00:05:25,593 And then I had all these negatives, like, insane amounts of negatives. 58 00:05:27,228 --> 00:05:31,933 You always want to know who is behind the work. 59 00:05:33,026 --> 00:05:35,895 I just knew her name was Vivian Maier. 60 00:05:36,738 --> 00:05:40,108 Was she a journalist? Professional photographer? 61 00:05:41,826 --> 00:05:45,822 "Let me just Google her name again to see if there's anything up." 62 00:05:47,707 --> 00:05:53,454 And I found an obituary that was placed just a few days before that search. 63 00:05:54,631 --> 00:05:58,626 I found an address in her stuff. 64 00:05:59,093 --> 00:06:02,247 And after some, like, WhitePages searches, 65 00:06:02,347 --> 00:06:04,841 I called, and I said, 66 00:06:06,100 --> 00:06:10,088 "I have the work... the negatives of Vivian Maier." 67 00:06:10,188 --> 00:06:12,390 And he was like, "Oh, that was my nanny." 68 00:06:14,651 --> 00:06:16,269 That was his nanny. 69 00:06:18,905 --> 00:06:21,275 Why is a nanny... 70 00:06:22,075 --> 00:06:24,735 taking all these photos? 71 00:06:27,038 --> 00:06:29,482 What they started to tell me about her 72 00:06:29,582 --> 00:06:32,076 was... was strange. 73 00:06:34,879 --> 00:06:36,739 He said, "She was kind of a loner. 74 00:06:36,839 --> 00:06:39,117 "She didn't have any family that we knew of. 75 00:06:39,217 --> 00:06:42,412 "She never had any love life or children that we knew of. 76 00:06:42,512 --> 00:06:44,255 "But she was like our mother." 77 00:06:47,225 --> 00:06:50,052 So it just caught my curiosity. 78 00:06:50,812 --> 00:06:53,423 So what I said was, "Do you have any of her stuff?" 79 00:06:53,523 --> 00:06:58,261 And they said, "Well, I've been keeping up the bills on her storage lockers. 80 00:06:58,361 --> 00:07:01,598 "We wanna throw all the stuff out. She was a pack rat." 81 00:07:01,698 --> 00:07:02,849 I said, "No, no, no, don't." 82 00:07:02,949 --> 00:07:06,319 He's like, "You don't understand. She was a pack rat. 83 00:07:07,245 --> 00:07:10,857 "We're gonna get a dumpster. You're welcome to come and help us. 84 00:07:10,957 --> 00:07:15,328 "If you see anything that you like that we're gonna throw out, you can have." 85 00:07:15,878 --> 00:07:19,957 I just wanted to go find out who she was. Just a quick thing. 86 00:07:27,515 --> 00:07:30,710 I found this leather chest. 87 00:07:30,810 --> 00:07:35,340 It was, like, taped shut with just, like, box tape or something. 88 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:39,677 And so we cut it and we opened it. 89 00:07:39,777 --> 00:07:45,024 And it was filled to the top with rolls of undeveloped film. 90 00:07:47,035 --> 00:07:51,364 I took one canister and I shook it, and it rattled. 91 00:07:52,248 --> 00:07:55,117 So I opened it and there was teeth inside. 92 00:08:01,382 --> 00:08:07,163 She had stuff wedged and hidden in everything that she had. 93 00:08:07,263 --> 00:08:12,043 Almost like... it's like a secret little hiding spot for all of her little things. 94 00:08:12,143 --> 00:08:14,295 A coupon, a note, 95 00:08:14,395 --> 00:08:17,423 a flyer, bus passes, train cards. 96 00:08:17,523 --> 00:08:20,802 Her hats. Shoes. 97 00:08:20,902 --> 00:08:24,597 Her coats, her blouses. 98 00:08:24,697 --> 00:08:27,517 I have uncashed income tax cheques from the government 99 00:08:27,617 --> 00:08:30,027 amounting to thousands of dollars. 100 00:08:43,966 --> 00:08:45,994 I have around 100,000 negatives. 101 00:08:46,094 --> 00:08:49,372 I have 700 rolls of undeveloped colour film. 102 00:08:49,472 --> 00:08:53,126 2,000 undeveloped rolls of black-and-white film. 103 00:08:53,226 --> 00:08:57,805 I realised everything needs to be organised and scanned and archived. 104 00:08:58,564 --> 00:09:01,718 But it was more than I could handle myself. 105 00:09:01,818 --> 00:09:05,805 So I thought, "Let's see what the museums will do to help me. 106 00:09:05,905 --> 00:09:09,317 "Maybe I could get this into MoMA. Maybe I could get this into Tate Modern." 107 00:09:10,410 --> 00:09:12,603 I sent them... letters. 108 00:09:12,703 --> 00:09:15,114 And here is the reply. 109 00:09:17,166 --> 00:09:19,652 "Dear Mr Maloof, on behalf of the curators, 110 00:09:19,752 --> 00:09:23,197 "I would like to thank you for thinking of the Department of Photography at MoMA. 111 00:09:23,297 --> 00:09:25,700 "Unfortunately, the museum cannot accommodate 112 00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:28,085 "these photographs at this time." 113 00:09:28,845 --> 00:09:31,205 At that point, 114 00:09:31,305 --> 00:09:33,716 I just figured, "I'm on my own. 115 00:09:36,644 --> 00:09:38,671 "I'm gonna try to do an exhibition. 116 00:09:38,771 --> 00:09:41,341 "I'm gonna do a book." 117 00:09:41,441 --> 00:09:43,643 It's an insane amount of work. 118 00:09:44,652 --> 00:09:46,812 I'm kind of compulsive with stuff. 119 00:09:48,448 --> 00:09:51,400 I just wanted people to see this incredible work. 120 00:09:53,870 --> 00:09:57,698 And I applied for a show at the Cultural Center in Chicago. 121 00:10:06,632 --> 00:10:12,963 They said this was the biggest turnout for any artist they had ever had. 122 00:10:14,098 --> 00:10:16,801 And then, the story just took off. 123 00:10:22,148 --> 00:10:24,675 The history of street photography is being rewritten. 124 00:10:24,775 --> 00:10:26,427 - Vivian Maier. - Vivian Maier. 125 00:10:26,527 --> 00:10:29,263 - Vivian Maier. - Saved from obscurity. 126 00:10:29,363 --> 00:10:33,851 In death, she is getting the fame that she never had in life. 127 00:10:33,951 --> 00:10:37,772 John Maloof is still working his way through all Maier's negatives. 128 00:10:37,872 --> 00:10:42,118 My mission is to put Vivian in the history books. 129 00:10:46,214 --> 00:10:48,199 My first impression, when I saw the work, 130 00:10:48,299 --> 00:10:53,162 was the kind of delight when a surprise comes your way 131 00:10:53,262 --> 00:10:56,457 and you feel that somebody, hitherto undiscovered, 132 00:10:56,557 --> 00:11:00,211 suddenly makes their work available and it looks good. 133 00:11:00,311 --> 00:11:03,673 It looks like there's an authentic eye 134 00:11:03,773 --> 00:11:06,801 and a real savvy about human nature 135 00:11:06,901 --> 00:11:09,929 and photography, and the street, 136 00:11:10,029 --> 00:11:12,723 and that kind of thing doesn't happen that often. 137 00:11:12,823 --> 00:11:17,311 I see thousands of pictures. Day after day, people send me their websites to look at. 138 00:11:17,411 --> 00:11:21,323 And when I flick through them, I feel most of them are undistinguished. 139 00:11:21,707 --> 00:11:28,072 But Vivian's work instantly had those qualities of human understanding 140 00:11:28,172 --> 00:11:30,032 and warmth and playfulness, 141 00:11:30,132 --> 00:11:33,669 that I thought, "This is a genuine shooter." 142 00:11:34,804 --> 00:11:37,089 She had a great eye. 143 00:11:38,724 --> 00:11:41,135 And she... Great sense of framing. 144 00:11:41,602 --> 00:11:45,923 - Here... this is the first one. I can't... - It's a muddy construction worker's butt. 145 00:11:46,023 --> 00:11:48,142 Oh, my God! 146 00:11:49,527 --> 00:11:51,812 She had a sense of humour. 147 00:11:52,488 --> 00:11:54,899 And a sense of tragedy. 148 00:11:57,743 --> 00:11:59,779 Beautiful. 149 00:12:00,162 --> 00:12:02,615 Those photos of children are beautiful. 150 00:12:04,333 --> 00:12:07,787 Beautiful sense of light, environment. 151 00:12:08,296 --> 00:12:09,906 I mean, she had it all. 152 00:12:10,006 --> 00:12:12,750 Was she very prolific? Did she shoot a lot? 153 00:12:13,259 --> 00:12:16,579 In total, there's probably about 150,000 negatives. 154 00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:18,664 She shot a lot. 155 00:12:18,764 --> 00:12:21,175 She never showed her work to anybody? 156 00:12:23,311 --> 00:12:26,380 That's what I'm trying to figure out. So far, no. 157 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:28,682 I think people would have loved her work. 158 00:12:29,609 --> 00:12:33,646 I mean, I could even say, Robert Frank with a square format. 159 00:12:34,905 --> 00:12:37,149 Lisette Model... 160 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:40,569 Helen Levitt, definitely. 161 00:12:41,537 --> 00:12:43,272 Diane Arbus. 162 00:12:43,372 --> 00:12:45,616 Some of the street portraits. 163 00:12:46,751 --> 00:12:50,162 Had she made herself known, she would have become a famous photographer. 164 00:12:52,131 --> 00:12:53,866 Something was wrong, something... 165 00:12:53,966 --> 00:12:58,003 There's... there's a piece of the puzzle missing. 166 00:12:58,888 --> 00:13:01,298 That's beautiful. 167 00:13:03,059 --> 00:13:06,796 I really want to know, why did Vivian make these images? 168 00:13:06,896 --> 00:13:09,932 What drove her to such compulsion, 169 00:13:10,608 --> 00:13:14,178 to an obsessive degree, to take so many pictures? 170 00:13:14,278 --> 00:13:16,564 Why were they never shown? 171 00:13:17,698 --> 00:13:21,686 I started to unbox all of her stuff. 172 00:13:21,786 --> 00:13:23,688 I'm finding leads. 173 00:13:23,788 --> 00:13:26,023 You know, receipts that she had. But... 174 00:13:26,123 --> 00:13:30,570 Her... Her receipts are from the '70s and '80s. 175 00:13:30,670 --> 00:13:32,613 And in the '70s and '80s in Chicago, 176 00:13:32,713 --> 00:13:34,949 there was no area code. 177 00:13:35,049 --> 00:13:40,079 And I started calling these phone numbers, attaching every various area code. 178 00:13:40,179 --> 00:13:44,917 773, 312, 708, 847, 630, 815... 179 00:13:45,017 --> 00:13:47,753 Was she ever a nanny for a San Franciscan family? 180 00:13:47,853 --> 00:13:50,590 - Yes. - Oh, my gosh. 181 00:13:50,690 --> 00:13:52,933 Yes, she lived right next door. 182 00:14:05,204 --> 00:14:08,198 I know Vivian Maier because she was my childhood nanny. 183 00:14:08,998 --> 00:14:11,744 For about four years. Something like that. 184 00:14:14,630 --> 00:14:17,708 Her job was as a housekeeper and a nanny. 185 00:14:19,301 --> 00:14:21,587 Vivian was my nanny. 186 00:14:22,304 --> 00:14:27,968 Vivian came into our lives when we needed a caretaker for my mother. 187 00:14:28,686 --> 00:14:31,631 I was just staring at her, and I had thought, 188 00:14:31,731 --> 00:14:35,768 "Where did my sister find this lady to baby-sit her kids?" 189 00:14:44,076 --> 00:14:47,647 She was obsessed with just saving bits of memories, 190 00:14:47,747 --> 00:14:49,690 of moments in time. 191 00:14:49,790 --> 00:14:54,320 The stuff that she collected all helped me understand her a little better. 192 00:14:54,420 --> 00:14:57,623 I have dozens of audio tapes that Vivian made. 193 00:15:13,647 --> 00:15:17,893 I have around 150 8mm and 16mm movies. 194 00:15:29,914 --> 00:15:32,533 I found pictures of Phil Donahue. 195 00:15:33,375 --> 00:15:36,954 Like, in his home, petting a dog and at dinner. 196 00:15:38,088 --> 00:15:42,118 I was a single parent in Winnetka, Illinois, with four sons. 197 00:15:42,218 --> 00:15:44,995 Along comes Vivian. 198 00:15:45,095 --> 00:15:47,415 I met her in a diner, to interview her 199 00:15:47,515 --> 00:15:49,875 for this housekeeper job. 200 00:15:49,975 --> 00:15:52,336 She took my picture. 201 00:15:52,436 --> 00:15:55,005 I was a guy running back and forth over my shoes. 202 00:15:55,105 --> 00:15:58,426 I had to do a programme every day, sometimes two. 203 00:15:58,526 --> 00:16:01,137 I didn't want any trouble, I just... 204 00:16:01,237 --> 00:16:03,731 You know, I just wanted clean socks. 205 00:16:04,406 --> 00:16:06,726 She was with us less than a year. 206 00:16:06,826 --> 00:16:09,854 I have a memory of her taking a picture 207 00:16:09,954 --> 00:16:12,698 inside a garbage can. 208 00:16:15,668 --> 00:16:17,862 I thought, "Well, you know... 209 00:16:17,962 --> 00:16:20,156 "They laughed at Picasso." 210 00:16:20,256 --> 00:16:22,450 I didn't know. I mean, I didn't give it much thought. 211 00:16:22,550 --> 00:16:24,710 I didn't think she was crazy. 212 00:16:29,056 --> 00:16:31,667 Vivian took self-portraits. 213 00:16:31,767 --> 00:16:35,463 In my mind, I don't know what image I had of this person, 214 00:16:35,563 --> 00:16:39,349 but it was definitely not the image that I uncovered. 215 00:16:54,290 --> 00:16:57,318 She came across as unusual. 216 00:16:57,418 --> 00:17:01,155 She wore big... big coats, with felt hats. 217 00:17:01,255 --> 00:17:06,794 The kind of thing that might have been popular in 1925. 218 00:17:09,138 --> 00:17:11,582 She was always kind of hiding her figure. 219 00:17:11,682 --> 00:17:15,544 You know, wearing these heavy clothes. And these boots. 220 00:17:15,644 --> 00:17:17,513 They used to call her Army Boots. 221 00:17:19,523 --> 00:17:20,883 She was very tall. 222 00:17:20,983 --> 00:17:22,510 Seven feet... 223 00:17:22,610 --> 00:17:25,137 - No! Seven feet! - She was tall. 224 00:17:25,237 --> 00:17:28,107 - Oh, she must have been about five nine. - Six foot. 225 00:17:30,701 --> 00:17:33,270 - She liked wearing men's shirts... - She wore men's shirts. 226 00:17:33,370 --> 00:17:34,988 She said the tailoring was better. 227 00:17:36,165 --> 00:17:39,068 She'd have kind of a... just a straight blunt cut. 228 00:17:39,168 --> 00:17:42,079 She had hair that stuck straight up! 229 00:17:42,713 --> 00:17:45,241 Now, looking back, I would say she kind of dressed 230 00:17:45,341 --> 00:17:48,953 like you would expect to find women factory workers 231 00:17:49,053 --> 00:17:51,672 in the Soviet Union in the '50s or something. 232 00:17:52,973 --> 00:17:54,633 That's how she walked. 233 00:17:57,770 --> 00:18:00,047 You have to swing your arms up like this, 234 00:18:00,147 --> 00:18:03,592 and you have to do a... sort of a Nazi march. 235 00:18:03,692 --> 00:18:07,471 You'd see her on her little motorised bicycle. 236 00:18:07,571 --> 00:18:09,223 I mean, I remember sometimes thinking 237 00:18:09,323 --> 00:18:13,269 she kind of looked like... the Wicked Witch of the West. 238 00:18:13,369 --> 00:18:15,696 Always had her camera around her neck. 239 00:18:16,914 --> 00:18:19,366 Always the camera around her neck. 240 00:18:21,543 --> 00:18:25,948 She had, like, this great camera with... I remember, it was a square. 241 00:18:26,048 --> 00:18:31,620 Rolleiflex. You flip open the thing and you look through the viewfinder directly down. 242 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:34,206 I lusted after a twin-lens Rolly. 243 00:18:34,306 --> 00:18:35,916 And here, she had one. 244 00:18:36,016 --> 00:18:41,346 And I looked at that camera, and it looked like it was rather old. 245 00:18:43,899 --> 00:18:49,313 You see, the Rolleiflex is a great disguise camera. 246 00:18:50,531 --> 00:18:55,102 Because it wasn't up here, where she had to alert somebody on the street 247 00:18:55,202 --> 00:18:56,645 that she was photographing them. 248 00:18:56,745 --> 00:18:58,906 She could be sort of secretive down here. 249 00:19:00,791 --> 00:19:03,444 The camera was shooting from below. 250 00:19:03,544 --> 00:19:07,956 And it gave her pictures a kind of towering magnitude. 251 00:19:09,383 --> 00:19:12,995 There's a picture of a guy. He's just an ordinary street guy. 252 00:19:13,095 --> 00:19:16,832 But he has a power and dignity. 253 00:19:16,932 --> 00:19:21,170 And he's... he's standing there and he's looking at her. 254 00:19:21,270 --> 00:19:24,924 If you look at his eyeline, he's looking right into her face. 255 00:19:25,024 --> 00:19:30,229 And she probably looked down and focused and then looked right up at him. 256 00:19:31,113 --> 00:19:33,982 And he looked at her and she fired the shutter. 257 00:19:35,117 --> 00:19:39,021 Street photographers tend to be gregarious 258 00:19:39,121 --> 00:19:41,273 in the sense that they can go out on the street, 259 00:19:41,373 --> 00:19:44,735 and they're comfortable being among people, 260 00:19:44,835 --> 00:19:48,262 but they're also a funny mixture of solitaries 261 00:19:48,363 --> 00:19:51,033 at the same time as being gregarious. 262 00:19:51,133 --> 00:19:53,577 You observe and you embrace and you take in, 263 00:19:53,677 --> 00:19:57,130 but you stay back and you try to stay invisible. 264 00:19:59,099 --> 00:20:01,377 She didn't like to talk about herself. 265 00:20:01,477 --> 00:20:04,505 Some people I meet and they're very open. 266 00:20:04,605 --> 00:20:08,141 She was not an open person, she was a closed person. 267 00:20:08,776 --> 00:20:11,387 She lived on the third floor in our attic, 268 00:20:11,487 --> 00:20:15,975 and one of the first things she asked me for was please to put in a lock, 269 00:20:16,075 --> 00:20:19,278 so that she could lock her area securely. 270 00:20:20,537 --> 00:20:22,781 It was a real serious lock. 271 00:20:23,457 --> 00:20:26,159 She was mysterious. 272 00:20:26,794 --> 00:20:31,290 She said don't ever open this door, to her room. 273 00:20:33,842 --> 00:20:36,745 I think she made friends with me because she sized me up, 274 00:20:36,845 --> 00:20:40,374 and thought I was strong enough to lift a bunch of boxes for her. 275 00:20:40,474 --> 00:20:42,718 I broke the springs of my car. 276 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,930 I think that gives you an idea of how much weight I lifted. 277 00:20:47,940 --> 00:20:51,051 She mentioned that she brought her life with her, 278 00:20:51,151 --> 00:20:53,762 which meant a number of boxes. 279 00:20:53,862 --> 00:20:56,640 We said, "Sure, no problem." We had a garage. 280 00:20:56,740 --> 00:21:01,520 There was a porch off of the room, you know, sort of those sleeping porches. 281 00:21:01,620 --> 00:21:04,781 And it was piled high with boxes. 282 00:21:05,207 --> 00:21:09,036 We put them in our garage, which, fortunately, 283 00:21:11,171 --> 00:21:12,941 was a two-and-a-half car garage, for two cars. 284 00:21:12,965 --> 00:21:15,534 - And so we had this.. - It became a two-car garage. 285 00:21:15,634 --> 00:21:18,454 It became... it became a tight two-car garage. 286 00:21:18,554 --> 00:21:22,249 Of course, we'll never know how much the boxes were her photographs, 287 00:21:22,349 --> 00:21:24,418 - and how much of the boxes were... - John knows. 288 00:21:24,518 --> 00:21:28,013 Well, but she had so many boxes. 289 00:21:29,648 --> 00:21:34,094 I'd like to know why you would hoard all of this great art. 290 00:21:34,194 --> 00:21:36,521 Why would... why wouldn't you share it? 291 00:21:37,239 --> 00:21:40,025 What's the point of taking it if no one sees it? 292 00:21:40,742 --> 00:21:42,644 So sad, really. 293 00:21:42,744 --> 00:21:44,646 Really sad. 294 00:21:44,746 --> 00:21:46,815 If you could have just shown her all the pictures 295 00:21:46,915 --> 00:21:49,485 and held her down in a chair somewhere so she couldn't... 296 00:21:49,585 --> 00:21:52,204 put tape on her mouth so she couldn't tell you no. 297 00:21:52,796 --> 00:21:56,833 Obviously, the woman was so creative, and it must have been galling... 298 00:21:57,509 --> 00:22:00,253 to just, you know, be a maid. 299 00:22:01,096 --> 00:22:04,091 Wash the floors, making some lunch and dinner, 300 00:22:04,850 --> 00:22:07,094 taking care of kids as a nanny. 301 00:22:12,941 --> 00:22:16,144 Some of the early photos I have are from 1951. 302 00:22:18,530 --> 00:22:23,693 One of them said on the back, "The Walkers, Southampton." 303 00:22:25,162 --> 00:22:29,699 I was surprised to see the photographs of my grandparents' house. 304 00:22:31,084 --> 00:22:33,286 We always called it Tides' End. 305 00:22:40,469 --> 00:22:44,339 It's amazing to see it, so dilapidated. 306 00:22:47,226 --> 00:22:48,627 This was flowers. 307 00:22:48,727 --> 00:22:51,805 We'd have lunches out here, and tea, and... 308 00:22:52,648 --> 00:22:54,842 It was wonderful. 309 00:22:54,942 --> 00:22:57,845 Vivian probably spent the summer. 310 00:22:57,945 --> 00:23:00,647 She was probably a nanny out of New York, 311 00:23:01,198 --> 00:23:04,184 tagging along with a family and with the children. 312 00:23:04,284 --> 00:23:07,229 In those days, your father worked in New York, 313 00:23:07,329 --> 00:23:09,439 and came out by train on Friday, 314 00:23:09,539 --> 00:23:11,567 and went back on Sunday. 315 00:23:11,667 --> 00:23:14,653 I don't think that's changed very much. 316 00:23:14,753 --> 00:23:17,114 If you go to the beach club today, 317 00:23:17,214 --> 00:23:19,825 and, go down on the sand, 318 00:23:19,925 --> 00:23:22,210 you'll see the nannies there. 319 00:23:22,970 --> 00:23:25,080 Some of these women have been lucky enough 320 00:23:25,180 --> 00:23:27,541 to make their way up here to the United States. 321 00:23:27,641 --> 00:23:31,678 The girl who helps me, this is her fifth or sixth year here. 322 00:23:32,396 --> 00:23:35,015 - What's her name? - Olivia. 323 00:23:36,942 --> 00:23:39,769 Delightful. Delightful person. I love her dearly. 324 00:23:41,697 --> 00:23:45,017 She speaks very little English, and I speak very little Spanish. 325 00:23:45,117 --> 00:23:47,486 We get along beautifully. 326 00:23:56,336 --> 00:23:59,364 It's been written about that she had few friends, 327 00:23:59,464 --> 00:24:03,418 and I consider myself one of those friends. 328 00:24:04,553 --> 00:24:07,797 I liked her a lot. She was a terrific person. 329 00:24:09,599 --> 00:24:11,843 1962. 330 00:24:12,686 --> 00:24:16,590 I lived in Highland Park, I had a lot of small children, I was home a lot. 331 00:24:16,690 --> 00:24:21,136 One of my children was friendly with one of the boys she took care of. 332 00:24:21,236 --> 00:24:24,514 The children, they were always at each other's houses, 333 00:24:24,614 --> 00:24:26,058 and she would come by. 334 00:24:26,158 --> 00:24:30,812 We had good conversations with kids swirling around us ail the time. 335 00:24:30,912 --> 00:24:33,907 I had a very freewheeling, open household. 336 00:24:36,251 --> 00:24:38,620 There weren't a lot of rules. 337 00:24:38,962 --> 00:24:40,830 You know? Don't get killed in the street. 338 00:24:41,673 --> 00:24:43,951 She loved the children and the children loved her. 339 00:24:44,051 --> 00:24:46,378 She was wonderful to the children. 340 00:24:49,765 --> 00:24:54,344 I think, probably loved them as much as she probably loved anybody. 341 00:24:55,729 --> 00:24:57,839 - Knock, knock! - Who's there? 342 00:24:57,939 --> 00:24:59,091 - Apple. - Apple who? 343 00:24:59,191 --> 00:25:01,935 - Apple knock knock! - Who's there? 344 00:25:02,944 --> 00:25:05,355 - Apple. - Knock, knock! 345 00:25:05,947 --> 00:25:07,557 - Who's there? - Knock, knock. 346 00:25:07,657 --> 00:25:09,493 Knock, knock who? 347 00:25:14,447 --> 00:25:15,447 Oh, God! 348 00:25:15,791 --> 00:25:17,693 Well, gentlemen... 349 00:25:17,793 --> 00:25:22,080 I think she was quite lively, and a wonderful person in her younger years. 350 00:25:22,964 --> 00:25:24,574 I mean, she must have been a delight. 351 00:25:24,674 --> 00:25:27,703 I can see how they worshipped her, 352 00:25:27,803 --> 00:25:30,706 because she was doing the adventures 353 00:25:30,806 --> 00:25:34,384 that, normally, a parent would probably not do. 354 00:25:35,852 --> 00:25:38,722 Life was more adventurous with her around. 355 00:25:39,523 --> 00:25:43,135 She was very opinionated about how children should spend their time, 356 00:25:43,235 --> 00:25:46,388 and mainly how they should spend it was out and about with her. 357 00:25:46,488 --> 00:25:50,976 She would load up the stroller with the baby and her bag, and both kids, 358 00:25:51,076 --> 00:25:53,353 and off they would go on outings. 359 00:25:53,453 --> 00:25:55,105 And they had their routine. 360 00:25:55,205 --> 00:25:57,941 There was a Marshall Field's in downtown Evanston, 361 00:25:58,041 --> 00:26:00,193 and it had a candy counter on the first floor. 362 00:26:00,293 --> 00:26:03,788 Well, that was always the first stop, because there were always free samples. 363 00:26:04,756 --> 00:26:08,668 She would avail herself very heartily of the free samples. 364 00:26:09,261 --> 00:26:11,121 Meaning, like, dump... 365 00:26:11,221 --> 00:26:14,124 You know, she'd dump the whole tray of Frango Mints 366 00:26:14,224 --> 00:26:16,426 into her purse and walk away! 367 00:26:17,561 --> 00:26:19,296 We stopped going there all of a sudden, 368 00:26:19,396 --> 00:26:23,808 but I believe that she was kicked out of Marshall Field's, permanently. 369 00:26:24,401 --> 00:26:26,762 A really clear memory is her setting up 370 00:26:26,862 --> 00:26:29,773 to take photos of all these naked mannequins. 371 00:26:30,198 --> 00:26:34,144 Some of them were headless, some of them were toppled over a little bit. 372 00:26:34,244 --> 00:26:36,271 There'll be probably an amazing photograph. 373 00:26:36,371 --> 00:26:38,231 But as a child, it was taking forever, 374 00:26:38,331 --> 00:26:40,400 standing there on the corner of the street, 375 00:26:40,500 --> 00:26:44,654 waiting while this weird lady takes pictures of these naked, headless mannequins. 376 00:26:44,754 --> 00:26:48,367 Then they would go out and they would look in the alleys for junk, 377 00:26:48,467 --> 00:26:50,410 because that was what she liked to do. 378 00:26:50,510 --> 00:26:53,789 She would come home with pieces of metal, old furniture, 379 00:26:53,889 --> 00:26:55,624 and we would look at it. 380 00:26:55,724 --> 00:26:59,419 "Is this art? Is this not art? What is this? Oh, this could be useful. 381 00:26:59,519 --> 00:27:01,638 "This could come in handy sometime." 382 00:27:03,231 --> 00:27:06,927 My brother Robbie, he was riding his bike home from school, 383 00:27:07,027 --> 00:27:08,178 and he got hit by a car. 384 00:27:08,278 --> 00:27:12,140 He was sort of laying in the middle of the street, and an ambulance was coming, 385 00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,976 and he... and he says, and I don't know if this is true, 386 00:27:15,076 --> 00:27:19,114 but he always said that Vivian was taking pictures of him laying on the ground. 387 00:27:21,666 --> 00:27:23,527 It wasn't, like, "Oh, Robbie, are you OK?" 388 00:27:23,627 --> 00:27:25,870 It was more just, "Oh, this is a good photo op!" 389 00:27:32,886 --> 00:27:37,173 My mother drove up and saw my brother lying in the street. 390 00:27:38,558 --> 00:27:41,428 She said, "Oh! I thought the dogs got hit." 391 00:27:43,271 --> 00:27:45,465 Vivian was just kind of above the fray. 392 00:27:45,565 --> 00:27:50,145 And I remember thinking, "There's Vivian, taking pictures, as usual." 393 00:27:53,532 --> 00:27:58,403 She was aware of what was going on in politics and society at the time. 394 00:28:00,956 --> 00:28:05,110 She would bring this cassette recorder... 395 00:28:05,210 --> 00:28:09,664 and she goes to the supermarket, and she's asking people in line... 396 00:28:10,799 --> 00:28:12,033 - VHi, Carl. - Hi. 397 00:28:12,133 --> 00:28:13,577 I got you with my machine. 398 00:28:13,677 --> 00:28:17,998 I was wondering if you had anything to say about all this political scene. 399 00:28:18,098 --> 00:28:20,125 - Well... - About Nixon and so on. 400 00:28:20,225 --> 00:28:23,378 I think it happened the way it should for the best of the country. 401 00:28:23,478 --> 00:28:26,173 And maybe it'll be a warning for future politicians. 402 00:28:26,273 --> 00:28:28,933 That's right. That's right. 403 00:28:29,526 --> 00:28:31,678 But what did you think of the impeachment? 404 00:28:31,778 --> 00:28:33,263 - Come on! - Am I on tape? 405 00:28:33,363 --> 00:28:36,099 - Yes, you are. Come on. - I don't know. 406 00:28:36,199 --> 00:28:38,143 Well, you should have an opinion. 407 00:28:38,243 --> 00:28:41,780 Women are supposed to be opinionated, I hope. Come on. 408 00:28:42,998 --> 00:28:47,243 There's one movie that she made that has a note in it. 409 00:28:48,795 --> 00:28:53,366 And it says, "1972, Chicago murder of mother and baby. 410 00:28:53,466 --> 00:28:56,661 "Market where she found ad for baby-sitting job 411 00:28:56,761 --> 00:28:59,380 "which had led to disappearance and death. 412 00:29:09,024 --> 00:29:11,768 Then you see her walking to the supermarket. 413 00:29:14,112 --> 00:29:17,315 She's walking in the baby-sitter's footsteps. 414 00:29:21,536 --> 00:29:24,030 You see her walking to the neighbourhood. 415 00:29:24,664 --> 00:29:28,618 I just wonder if that's where the crime happened. 416 00:29:34,841 --> 00:29:37,085 She goes to the funeral home. 417 00:29:50,106 --> 00:29:54,010 She's kind of... a journalist of the era, like a... 418 00:29:54,110 --> 00:29:57,305 But... usually, you do that to show people. 419 00:29:57,405 --> 00:29:59,349 You know, to show, "This is what happened." 420 00:29:59,449 --> 00:30:00,733 She just did it. 421 00:30:07,540 --> 00:30:12,078 One day in 1977, I was driving on Sheridan Road 422 00:30:13,546 --> 00:30:16,116 and someone flagged me for hitchhiking. 423 00:30:16,216 --> 00:30:18,201 Plenty of people do that. 424 00:30:18,301 --> 00:30:20,545 Turned out to be Vivian Maier. 425 00:30:21,304 --> 00:30:25,041 When I met Vivian, back in 1972, 426 00:30:25,141 --> 00:30:27,544 I was in grad school at Northwestern, 427 00:30:27,644 --> 00:30:29,713 and I worked in the language lab. 428 00:30:29,813 --> 00:30:34,726 And it was not at all unusual for eccentric people to be coming through the lab. 429 00:30:35,694 --> 00:30:40,223 She was French. She had lost most of her accent, I would say. 430 00:30:40,323 --> 00:30:46,396 She affected what, at the time, struck me instantly as a fake French accent. 431 00:30:46,496 --> 00:30:49,065 Some people have said that she had a fake accent. 432 00:30:49,165 --> 00:30:50,900 No, this is... this is not true. 433 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,537 My degree is in linguistics. I have a PhD in linguistics. 434 00:30:56,589 --> 00:30:59,584 The truth is, it was a fake accent. 435 00:31:01,553 --> 00:31:06,541 I happened to see the film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 436 00:31:06,641 --> 00:31:09,377 and, probably not for nothing, they were right... 437 00:31:09,477 --> 00:31:11,087 And I have... 438 00:31:11,187 --> 00:31:14,390 There's the lilting sound of it, you know? 439 00:31:14,691 --> 00:31:18,178 "Uh, I don't really know what you want me to do, but you have to do it, 440 00:31:18,278 --> 00:31:20,889 "come over later, and then everything will be OK." 441 00:31:20,989 --> 00:31:23,558 Her voice, it seemed like it went up and down, 442 00:31:23,658 --> 00:31:26,102 - you know what I'm saying? - Oh, yes. Ooh! 443 00:31:26,202 --> 00:31:29,981 Her vowels were longer in duration than French vowels. 444 00:31:30,081 --> 00:31:32,025 I mean, you know, this is the... 445 00:31:32,125 --> 00:31:37,280 I did... My master's, thesis was on vowel duration in French. 446 00:31:37,380 --> 00:31:39,040 So I had a little bit of background. 447 00:31:40,675 --> 00:31:43,411 I believe it's someone who had polished their English accent, 448 00:31:43,511 --> 00:31:46,247 having then lost some of their French accent. 449 00:31:46,347 --> 00:31:49,751 You don't want to see a copy of my dissertation, so... 450 00:31:51,311 --> 00:31:54,180 - Well... - No! You don't, really. 451 00:31:56,775 --> 00:31:58,802 I asked her her name. 452 00:31:58,902 --> 00:32:01,221 She kind of paused. I remember that. 453 00:32:01,321 --> 00:32:03,481 And she said, "Call me Smith." 454 00:32:04,616 --> 00:32:07,402 I mean, it was very clear she didn't want to tell me her name. 455 00:32:08,453 --> 00:32:10,488 I thought, "This is weird." 456 00:32:14,209 --> 00:32:16,903 She had been a customer of ours. 457 00:32:17,003 --> 00:32:19,539 She was a pain in the neck, to be truthful. 458 00:32:20,173 --> 00:32:23,743 We held things for her for as long as a year. 459 00:32:23,843 --> 00:32:26,663 We would say, "What's your name?" 460 00:32:26,763 --> 00:32:28,715 "I'm not going to tell you." 461 00:32:29,933 --> 00:32:32,802 "Well, we can't keep it without a name." 462 00:32:33,603 --> 00:32:37,098 "All right. Miss V Smith." 463 00:32:40,401 --> 00:32:42,637 You know, "Ha-ha-ha, Miss V Smith." 464 00:32:42,737 --> 00:32:46,641 It was patently obvious that she was not Miss V Smith. 465 00:32:46,741 --> 00:32:49,018 And we'd say, "OK, phone number." 466 00:32:49,118 --> 00:32:50,937 "I don't have a phone." 467 00:32:51,037 --> 00:32:53,982 "Well, how are we going to get in touch with you if we need to?" 468 00:32:54,082 --> 00:32:55,408 "Well, you won't." 469 00:32:59,212 --> 00:33:02,123 Why was she giving us a fake name? 470 00:33:04,634 --> 00:33:06,878 We didn't think as much about it... 471 00:33:07,887 --> 00:33:09,964 as you are. 472 00:33:14,352 --> 00:33:16,421 Now, she spelled her name differently. 473 00:33:16,521 --> 00:33:19,640 There's B as in boy Maier. 474 00:33:20,108 --> 00:33:23,219 Every possible combination of ways you could spell Maier. 475 00:33:23,319 --> 00:33:27,682 M-E-Y-E-R. M-A-I-E-R. M-A-Y-E-R. 476 00:33:27,782 --> 00:33:29,934 We always called her Miss Maier. 477 00:33:30,034 --> 00:33:31,978 Miss Maiers. 478 00:33:32,078 --> 00:33:34,355 She said, "Call me Viv." 479 00:33:34,455 --> 00:33:37,283 You would never have called this woman Viv. 480 00:33:37,876 --> 00:33:40,528 - Vivian. - Nobody called her Viv? 481 00:33:40,628 --> 00:33:42,747 No. Vivian. 482 00:33:44,132 --> 00:33:47,210 Why wouldn't you wanna tell people your real name? 483 00:33:48,303 --> 00:33:53,208 I asked her what she did, and her answer was another thing I'll never forget. 484 00:33:53,308 --> 00:33:55,251 "I'm sort of a spy." 485 00:33:55,351 --> 00:33:58,338 That's exactly what she said. I can still see her and hear her saying it. 486 00:33:58,438 --> 00:33:59,764 It was so odd. 487 00:34:01,107 --> 00:34:06,805 I think the only person who says that is somebody who's definitely not a spy. 488 00:34:06,905 --> 00:34:09,190 Why would you say that? 489 00:34:22,837 --> 00:34:25,248 Maybe she wanted to be somebody else. 490 00:34:26,090 --> 00:34:28,334 A lot of us do that. 491 00:34:32,555 --> 00:34:36,793 If she did not have this job as a baby-sitter, 492 00:34:36,893 --> 00:34:40,930 her lifestyle would have been very understandable. 493 00:34:42,732 --> 00:34:46,394 The real question is, why did she do this kind of work? 494 00:34:48,529 --> 00:34:52,767 Her intelligence and her views on things, 495 00:34:52,867 --> 00:34:57,188 there was something very precious to her about keeping them secret. 496 00:34:57,288 --> 00:35:03,236 Vivian may have looked down, so to speak, on the employers 497 00:35:03,336 --> 00:35:07,290 who were hiring her for this low-paying kind of work. 498 00:35:09,384 --> 00:35:12,336 She identified with the poor. 499 00:35:19,310 --> 00:35:21,212 I mean, she said she doesn't go to a doctor, 500 00:35:21,312 --> 00:35:23,047 she doesn't have any medical insurance, 501 00:35:23,147 --> 00:35:25,466 and I said, "Are you... are you worried about that?" 502 00:35:25,566 --> 00:35:29,061 And she said, "The poor are too poor to die." 503 00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:34,809 She told me that when she first came to New York, 504 00:35:34,909 --> 00:35:38,646 she went to work in a sewing sweatshop. 505 00:35:38,746 --> 00:35:41,649 She realised one day that she wanted to do something 506 00:35:41,749 --> 00:35:45,320 where she could be outside and in the world, out and about, 507 00:35:45,420 --> 00:35:48,247 and see the sun, so she took up nannying. 508 00:35:50,049 --> 00:35:54,295 She felt that it gave her a certain amount of freedom. 509 00:35:55,763 --> 00:35:58,499 Somebody else was providing the shelter for her. 510 00:35:58,599 --> 00:36:03,379 She wasn't having to work so hard just to make ends meet, 511 00:36:03,479 --> 00:36:07,892 so she had some free time for her photographic endeavours. 512 00:36:16,075 --> 00:36:17,644 1959. 513 00:36:17,744 --> 00:36:23,316 Vivian told her employer, "I'm going to travel the world." 514 00:36:23,416 --> 00:36:25,159 "I'll be back in eight months." 515 00:36:26,753 --> 00:36:30,490 She went to Bangkok, India, Thailand... 516 00:36:30,590 --> 00:36:32,833 Yemen... 517 00:36:33,718 --> 00:36:36,120 All of South America. 518 00:36:36,220 --> 00:36:38,798 She travelled by herself. 519 00:36:40,683 --> 00:36:43,378 Just her and her camera. 520 00:36:43,478 --> 00:36:46,847 There are thousands of photos from her world travels. 521 00:37:20,765 --> 00:37:25,211 Do you think Vivian would like the attention that she's getting? 522 00:37:25,311 --> 00:37:27,839 I think she had a very... I don't know... I don't think so. 523 00:37:27,939 --> 00:37:30,675 I think she was more of a very private person. 524 00:37:30,775 --> 00:37:33,469 I don't... I think she... she might have seen this 525 00:37:33,569 --> 00:37:35,938 as... as kind of an intrusion, you know? 526 00:37:39,492 --> 00:37:46,232 I can't help but to feel a little uncomfortable or guilty 527 00:37:46,332 --> 00:37:53,080 exposing the work of a person who did not want to be exposed. 528 00:37:54,841 --> 00:37:57,126 She was so secretive. 529 00:37:57,468 --> 00:38:00,038 I think that she would like her artwork to be honoured, 530 00:38:00,138 --> 00:38:03,291 but I don't think she personally would have liked being in the limelight. 531 00:38:03,391 --> 00:38:05,551 I don't. 532 00:38:05,977 --> 00:38:08,504 She would never have let this happen, 533 00:38:08,604 --> 00:38:10,882 had she known about it. 534 00:38:10,982 --> 00:38:12,383 No, she never would have let it. 535 00:38:12,483 --> 00:38:14,685 She... That was her babies. 536 00:38:15,528 --> 00:38:18,356 She wouldn't have put her babies on display. 537 00:38:20,199 --> 00:38:22,643 But I don't think she took all those photographs 538 00:38:22,743 --> 00:38:24,395 for them to just dissolve into dust. 539 00:38:24,495 --> 00:38:27,531 I think she took those photographs to be seen. 540 00:38:30,585 --> 00:38:36,665 I find the mystery of it more interesting than her work itself. 541 00:38:38,092 --> 00:38:42,797 I'd love to know more about this person. 542 00:38:44,599 --> 00:38:47,752 And I don't think you can do that through her work. 543 00:38:47,852 --> 00:38:49,962 So she didn't tell you anything 544 00:38:50,062 --> 00:38:52,507 about where she came from, her background? 545 00:38:52,607 --> 00:38:55,301 You didn't know anything? Nobody pried into that? 546 00:38:55,401 --> 00:38:57,812 No. I... I... Not really. 547 00:38:58,529 --> 00:39:02,058 Did you know anything about Vivian? 548 00:39:02,158 --> 00:39:05,236 - Her family, her past? - No. 549 00:39:06,370 --> 00:39:10,733 It's amazing, isn't it, that you're friendly with someone for, like, ten years, 550 00:39:10,833 --> 00:39:16,280 and that you don't know anything more about them than this much? 551 00:39:16,380 --> 00:39:18,407 We always thought she was French. 552 00:39:18,507 --> 00:39:21,244 Now, she's kind of, what... Austrian? 553 00:39:21,344 --> 00:39:26,298 I mean, she's from Als... from Alsace-Lorraine or something? 554 00:39:27,475 --> 00:39:28,876 She's from New York. 555 00:39:28,976 --> 00:39:30,878 From New York? What do you mean, from New York? 556 00:39:30,978 --> 00:39:33,222 - Well, she was born in New York. - She was? 557 00:39:33,856 --> 00:39:37,218 - She was born in New York. - No. Really? 558 00:39:37,318 --> 00:39:40,771 Oh, I thought she was born in Europe. I thought she was French. 559 00:39:41,781 --> 00:39:44,358 How did she acquire that accent? 560 00:39:49,413 --> 00:39:52,483 So, where's Vivian from? 561 00:39:52,583 --> 00:39:56,370 She's from New York City, born February 1st of 1926. 562 00:39:56,712 --> 00:39:59,407 Speaking from a professional standpoint, 563 00:39:59,507 --> 00:40:02,160 compared to what I've done in the past, 564 00:40:02,260 --> 00:40:06,789 this is ranked up real high on the list of difficulty. 565 00:40:06,889 --> 00:40:09,876 The families usually have some consistency 566 00:40:09,976 --> 00:40:12,044 as to where they're located, 567 00:40:12,144 --> 00:40:15,715 I at least have them in public record, where I can find information about them. 568 00:40:15,815 --> 00:40:19,719 Not like this one. The whole family is a mystery family. 569 00:40:19,819 --> 00:40:22,346 There's a few things that we know about Vivian Maier. 570 00:40:22,446 --> 00:40:25,600 One, we know that she was never married. She was a spinster. 571 00:40:25,700 --> 00:40:29,069 She had no husband, she had no children. 572 00:40:29,870 --> 00:40:31,689 Her parents are both dead. 573 00:40:31,789 --> 00:40:34,066 Vivian did have a brother, an older brother. 574 00:40:34,166 --> 00:40:36,402 Clearly, he's probably dead. 575 00:40:36,502 --> 00:40:38,654 All of them seemed to be private. 576 00:40:38,754 --> 00:40:42,033 All of them seemed to want nothing to do with the rest of their families. 577 00:40:42,133 --> 00:40:46,537 All of them seemed to be disconnected from the remainder of their family. 578 00:40:46,637 --> 00:40:51,083 She had one aunt, who was to leave everything to a friend in her will. 579 00:40:51,183 --> 00:40:54,545 Not to family, but to a friend. And this is the reason why. 580 00:40:54,645 --> 00:40:57,840 She says here, and I'm quoting directly from her will, 581 00:40:57,940 --> 00:41:01,928 "I make no provision for any of my relatives, 582 00:41:02,028 --> 00:41:05,264 "for reasons best known to me, 583 00:41:05,364 --> 00:41:09,985 "which I have disclosed to a few of my intimate friends." 584 00:41:10,870 --> 00:41:13,689 At the time of Alma's death in 1965, 585 00:41:13,789 --> 00:41:17,068 Vivian was obviously alive, her only niece. 586 00:41:17,168 --> 00:41:21,447 Whatever her hangup was, it went to her grave with her. 587 00:41:21,547 --> 00:41:25,326 Vivian's father was out of the picture very early on. 588 00:41:25,426 --> 00:41:29,338 So the census records show that Vivian's living with her mother. 589 00:41:30,973 --> 00:41:33,626 But I did know that she lived in France for a while, 590 00:41:33,726 --> 00:41:35,836 and that her mother was from France. 591 00:41:35,936 --> 00:41:38,422 So my guess was that there was family in France. 592 00:41:38,522 --> 00:41:44,428 Because the thing is, the 1949 photos and the 1959 photos 593 00:41:44,528 --> 00:41:46,639 are the same village. 594 00:41:46,739 --> 00:41:49,108 So I know she was returning to the same place. 595 00:41:49,867 --> 00:41:52,561 So I started looking up all the stuff that she had from France, 596 00:41:52,661 --> 00:41:55,106 I started looking at the photographs of France, 597 00:41:55,206 --> 00:41:57,900 looking at the little towns and the church steeples, 598 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,320 and how this church steeple looks and how that one looks in this little village. 599 00:42:01,420 --> 00:42:04,490 And I would go on the internet and look up little villages in France, 600 00:42:04,590 --> 00:42:05,908 and try to match the steeples. 601 00:42:06,008 --> 00:42:08,577 It's like matching a fingerprint. 602 00:42:08,677 --> 00:42:11,539 I knew I had at least one of the villages that she was in. 603 00:42:11,639 --> 00:42:13,882 Found. 604 00:42:16,060 --> 00:42:18,421 Saint-Julien and Saint-Bonnet, 605 00:42:18,521 --> 00:42:23,718 in this remote little sheep-herder village in the French Alps. 606 00:42:23,818 --> 00:42:25,978 Population 250. 607 00:42:27,113 --> 00:42:30,433 She might have been offended that you found her little town. 608 00:42:30,533 --> 00:42:32,651 That was none of your business. 609 00:42:33,452 --> 00:42:35,863 She might say, "God, oh, God. 610 00:42:36,747 --> 00:42:38,991 "Why did he do that?" 611 00:42:40,876 --> 00:42:44,822 For some reason, my curiosity is overwhelming 612 00:42:44,922 --> 00:42:47,249 to find out more about Vivian. 613 00:42:48,509 --> 00:42:50,411 I'm uncovering an artist. 614 00:42:50,511 --> 00:42:54,623 If I'm leaving this giant boulder unturned, 615 00:42:54,723 --> 00:42:57,635 because I don't go here, it would be a mistake. 616 00:44:08,506 --> 00:44:10,533 - Vivian took this. - Are you sure? 617 00:44:10,633 --> 00:44:13,877 Yes. 100 per cent. I have this same print. 618 00:44:15,429 --> 00:44:17,840 Vivian took this picture. This is her print. 619 00:44:19,725 --> 00:44:21,969 Oui. 620 00:44:22,645 --> 00:44:24,179 He says, "Aren't you happy?" 621 00:44:25,022 --> 00:44:27,383 Her box camera. 622 00:44:29,276 --> 00:44:31,478 I have... I have a similar one. 623 00:44:32,279 --> 00:44:34,857 - No, that's her mum's camera. - Vivian's mom? 624 00:44:47,336 --> 00:44:48,495 Oh... 625 00:44:50,130 --> 00:44:51,623 - That's Vivian? - Yes. 626 00:44:52,466 --> 00:44:54,418 Wow. 627 00:44:57,346 --> 00:45:01,375 Another thing I found in Vivian's stuff was this letter. 628 00:45:01,475 --> 00:45:06,847 It was written in French, and it's talking about a photography lab in France. 629 00:45:17,324 --> 00:45:19,685 - And you can do... like this. - Oui. 630 00:45:19,785 --> 00:45:23,030 The letter starts out, "Dear Mr Simon..." 631 00:46:12,504 --> 00:46:14,248 D'accord. 632 00:47:00,427 --> 00:47:03,622 Previously, we thought Vivian had no intentions 633 00:47:03,722 --> 00:47:07,084 of having anybody else print her work or show her work. 634 00:47:07,184 --> 00:47:10,629 This letter proves that assumption wrong. 635 00:47:10,729 --> 00:47:12,965 Vivian knew she was a good photographer, 636 00:47:13,065 --> 00:47:15,551 and she knew that these photographs were good. 637 00:47:15,651 --> 00:47:17,720 She wanted to show them to people. 638 00:47:17,820 --> 00:47:20,598 She may not have had that happen while she was alive, 639 00:47:20,698 --> 00:47:23,025 but we're doing it now. 640 00:47:23,909 --> 00:47:27,487 I stopped scanning myself, because I just couldn't keep up with it. 641 00:47:32,835 --> 00:47:36,196 There's a lab in New York with technicians scanning her work, 642 00:47:36,296 --> 00:47:38,866 Monday through Friday, nine to five, 643 00:47:38,966 --> 00:47:41,793 at a rate of about a few thousand a week. 644 00:47:42,678 --> 00:47:44,788 I've been developing the black and white films, 645 00:47:44,888 --> 00:47:47,424 so I have about a couple of hundred left to develop. 646 00:47:50,978 --> 00:47:53,422 It's a very complicated and tricky procedure, 647 00:47:53,522 --> 00:47:55,633 because you have to get the formula correct, 648 00:47:55,733 --> 00:47:59,061 and there's only one chance to get it right. 649 00:48:00,362 --> 00:48:02,022 It's... it's magical. 650 00:48:11,999 --> 00:48:14,576 We don't know what she would have printed, 651 00:48:15,836 --> 00:48:18,246 what she would have chosen or edited. 652 00:48:20,591 --> 00:48:25,253 We're seeing work now for the first time that Vivian never saw herself. 653 00:48:27,097 --> 00:48:31,835 When you contacted me, I wasn't sure if I wanted to get involved 654 00:48:31,935 --> 00:48:34,638 in a project with posthumous prints. 655 00:48:35,439 --> 00:48:38,342 I just didn't think it would be the right fit for the gallery. 656 00:48:38,442 --> 00:48:41,053 This is the room where we store our photographs. 657 00:48:41,153 --> 00:48:44,181 I think there are about between 25 and 30,000 photographs in here. 658 00:48:44,281 --> 00:48:46,684 I mean, it's more than most museums have. 659 00:48:46,784 --> 00:48:50,771 Vivian Maier, we've had more interest in this work 660 00:48:50,871 --> 00:48:55,409 than perhaps any other photographer I've ever worked with. 661 00:49:02,174 --> 00:49:05,585 It's a big problem trying to get her work into institutions. 662 00:49:06,678 --> 00:49:09,373 The problem is that the art world establishment 663 00:49:09,473 --> 00:49:11,583 still won't recognise Vivian's work. 664 00:49:11,683 --> 00:49:16,588 Museums usually deal with the final product, the print, 665 00:49:16,688 --> 00:49:19,558 that was made by the artist in the artist's life. 666 00:49:20,859 --> 00:49:25,981 They don't want to interpret an artist's work from where they left off. 667 00:49:26,824 --> 00:49:29,727 That's bogus, because Gary Winogrand 668 00:49:29,827 --> 00:49:33,272 had a desk full of rolls of film that he never developed. 669 00:49:33,372 --> 00:49:35,107 So they're developing 'em. 670 00:49:35,207 --> 00:49:38,444 Eugene Atget's work was printed after his death, 671 00:49:38,544 --> 00:49:40,863 and then ended up being acquired by MoMA. 672 00:49:40,963 --> 00:49:44,750 I mean, it's frustrating, because it's being done and... 673 00:49:45,467 --> 00:49:47,411 but nobody wants to do it for Vivian's work. 674 00:49:47,511 --> 00:49:49,872 She did print some of her work, 675 00:49:49,972 --> 00:49:54,543 but it... it was largely not the best edit of her work. 676 00:49:54,643 --> 00:49:57,588 She was a masterful photographer, 677 00:49:57,688 --> 00:50:00,891 but printing was not her thing. 678 00:50:02,359 --> 00:50:06,013 That's common, though. I mean, Cartier-Bresson hated printing, 679 00:50:06,113 --> 00:50:08,182 and Robert Frank wasn't a good printer. 680 00:50:08,282 --> 00:50:09,983 But they hire printers. 681 00:50:10,993 --> 00:50:13,153 They hire somebody to print for them. 682 00:50:13,620 --> 00:50:18,108 Good work is good work, and it's recognised that this is really great art. 683 00:50:18,208 --> 00:50:21,495 I do think her work needs to be appreciated by... by the world. 684 00:50:24,673 --> 00:50:26,458 These are the new prints. 685 00:50:26,967 --> 00:50:29,661 Cool. Yeah, these are great. Thank you for showing me. 686 00:50:29,761 --> 00:50:31,830 They're yours. 687 00:50:31,930 --> 00:50:35,959 The only way this work can move forward is if there's money that is made. 688 00:50:36,059 --> 00:50:38,678 The sale of prints will be a part of that. 689 00:50:43,775 --> 00:50:49,223 Of course, I wish that I could give her money, you know... 690 00:50:49,323 --> 00:50:52,734 She's gone. I mean, there's nothing I can do. 691 00:50:54,536 --> 00:50:56,772 She always had a money problem. 692 00:50:56,872 --> 00:50:59,233 God knows, she probably could have used the money. 693 00:50:59,333 --> 00:51:01,618 Too bad she wasn't discovered ten years earlier. 694 00:51:11,803 --> 00:51:13,105 Marble! 695 00:51:14,848 --> 00:51:17,092 Yeah, you two. 696 00:51:18,518 --> 00:51:22,130 Here's the picture. Miss Maier's right in the corner. 697 00:51:22,230 --> 00:51:24,475 I won't call her Vivian because... 698 00:51:24,775 --> 00:51:27,302 She'd have your guts for garters if you called her that. 699 00:51:27,402 --> 00:51:31,690 Not Mrs. Not Vivian. She was Miss Maiers. 700 00:51:32,449 --> 00:51:35,519 She was my governess from when I was five years old, 701 00:51:35,619 --> 00:51:37,938 up until I was about 11 years old. 702 00:51:38,038 --> 00:51:40,315 I've got in my baby book the exact date. 703 00:51:40,415 --> 00:51:45,537 It's like March of '67 until about 1974. 704 00:51:46,630 --> 00:51:52,202 Inger and I were best friends, and so I would spend a lot of time with Miss Maier. 705 00:51:52,302 --> 00:51:56,373 She would take us down to the city, and we would just walk. 706 00:51:56,473 --> 00:52:00,210 In the worst parts of town, she'd walk very quickly, 707 00:52:00,310 --> 00:52:03,213 and so my little legs had to fly to keep up with her. 708 00:52:03,313 --> 00:52:05,640 She would swing her arm just like this. 709 00:52:06,566 --> 00:52:09,261 And then her stride was just massive. 710 00:52:09,361 --> 00:52:12,097 Inger used to just beg her to slow down, 711 00:52:12,197 --> 00:52:14,774 and she would just drag her alongside. 712 00:52:15,742 --> 00:52:17,227 Poor thing. 713 00:52:17,327 --> 00:52:19,771 She'd take pictures of everything. 714 00:52:19,871 --> 00:52:21,948 She would see a subject. 715 00:52:22,791 --> 00:52:24,860 Something that would interest her. 716 00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:27,529 She'd open her camera, 717 00:52:27,629 --> 00:52:29,364 she'd focus it... 718 00:52:29,464 --> 00:52:31,450 These poor, you know, people, 719 00:52:31,550 --> 00:52:34,453 she would literally ask them to... to, like, pose for her. 720 00:52:34,553 --> 00:52:36,413 She didn't tend to pose people. 721 00:52:36,513 --> 00:52:37,831 She's like, "Stand there, wait." 722 00:52:37,931 --> 00:52:39,583 It was just the way it was. 723 00:52:39,683 --> 00:52:41,752 "Impoverished people. Take picture!" 724 00:52:41,852 --> 00:52:45,180 Or somebody crying, it was just, bam! 725 00:52:46,523 --> 00:52:47,925 They... You know? 726 00:52:48,025 --> 00:52:50,218 Like, "Oh, my God, what is this woman doing?" 727 00:52:50,318 --> 00:52:53,180 We'd joke about hitting her over the head with a camera, 728 00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,015 because she embarrassed us so much. 729 00:52:55,115 --> 00:52:57,726 It was imposing and rude. 730 00:52:57,826 --> 00:53:01,605 They felt, I'm sure, that they were being mocked in some way. 731 00:53:01,705 --> 00:53:03,323 I'm surprised she didn't get shot. 732 00:53:04,416 --> 00:53:08,954 My mom put her foot down and wouldn't let Miss Maier take me into the slum areas. 733 00:53:11,256 --> 00:53:14,534 She loved to read the paper, she liked it that we took the New York Times, 734 00:53:14,634 --> 00:53:16,119 and she read it every day, 735 00:53:16,219 --> 00:53:21,875 and she always had an eye for the bizarre, the grotesque, the incongruous. 736 00:53:21,975 --> 00:53:24,803 She wasn't interested in sweetness and light. 737 00:53:29,733 --> 00:53:35,981 She liked headlines that revealed the folly of individuals. 738 00:53:37,449 --> 00:53:41,019 Stories that would enable her to basically say, "I told you so." 739 00:53:41,119 --> 00:53:43,438 "I told you so." 740 00:53:43,538 --> 00:53:47,067 Some man murders his wife and then gets caught in cold blood, 741 00:53:47,167 --> 00:53:48,443 "I told you so." 742 00:53:48,543 --> 00:53:52,539 I mean, these things that revealed the folly of humanity. 743 00:54:11,817 --> 00:54:17,230 If you look at her art, she sees the bizarreness of life, 744 00:54:18,031 --> 00:54:22,610 the incongruity of life, and the unappealingness of human beings. 745 00:54:26,414 --> 00:54:29,359 There were little things, all the time, 746 00:54:29,459 --> 00:54:32,571 that she was just plain... 747 00:54:32,671 --> 00:54:36,958 in microscopic ways, just chipping at me. 748 00:54:37,968 --> 00:54:39,627 All the time. 749 00:54:40,428 --> 00:54:43,373 I would go down, with my allowance money, 750 00:54:43,473 --> 00:54:45,542 to the crafts store, 751 00:54:45,642 --> 00:54:50,873 and buy myself a thousand little tiny, you know, like rainbows and... 752 00:54:51,273 --> 00:54:53,516 Glass tchotchkes. 753 00:54:54,151 --> 00:54:57,979 Viv would look at my trove of tchotchkes and hate it. 754 00:54:59,156 --> 00:55:02,225 She would get a big mop bucket 755 00:55:02,325 --> 00:55:06,104 and she would fill it with hot, soapy water, yes, and ammonia. 756 00:55:06,204 --> 00:55:09,357 And she would have the ammonia be such a strength 757 00:55:09,457 --> 00:55:11,359 that you couldn't be near the bucket. 758 00:55:11,459 --> 00:55:13,904 Clearly, to need that much ammonia, 759 00:55:14,004 --> 00:55:17,499 you would surely be cleaning something very, very dirty. 760 00:55:21,136 --> 00:55:23,380 She would take her arm, 761 00:55:24,472 --> 00:55:27,250 and just swipe all the tchotchkes into the bucket. 762 00:55:27,350 --> 00:55:31,004 They're crashing and grinding together, and smashing, 763 00:55:31,104 --> 00:55:33,131 and they're all covered in ammonia... 764 00:55:37,152 --> 00:55:41,848 Me, I sort of just quietly tolerated whatever was happening to me in my life. 765 00:55:41,948 --> 00:55:43,517 My brother acted out, 766 00:55:43,617 --> 00:55:48,313 and I don't think that she had good ways of coping with his behaviour. 767 00:55:48,413 --> 00:55:51,316 She, sort of ditched us. 768 00:55:51,416 --> 00:55:54,486 We were all taking a walk together, and she ducked down an alley 769 00:55:54,586 --> 00:55:56,738 and just disappeared. 770 00:55:56,838 --> 00:55:59,040 The police finally found us. 771 00:56:00,675 --> 00:56:03,328 I think she wanted to scare us. 772 00:56:03,428 --> 00:56:07,582 I remember getting lectured by the police. "You can't leave your baby-sitter." 773 00:56:07,682 --> 00:56:09,709 And me saying, "No, no! 774 00:56:09,809 --> 00:56:11,845 "My baby-sitter left me!" 775 00:56:14,356 --> 00:56:16,883 There were some accidents... 776 00:56:16,983 --> 00:56:21,221 which I knew weren't accidents, everybody knew weren't really accidents. 777 00:56:21,321 --> 00:56:23,014 All of a sudden, there's a kid screaming 778 00:56:23,114 --> 00:56:25,475 in the basement with the door shut and the lights off. 779 00:56:25,575 --> 00:56:27,602 Yeah. That kind of thing. 780 00:56:27,702 --> 00:56:30,063 She was mean. I don't know how else to say it. 781 00:56:30,163 --> 00:56:32,524 I don't know, she had, like, a dark side. 782 00:56:32,624 --> 00:56:34,909 I remember one time she said... 783 00:56:36,169 --> 00:56:39,489 "These men, they'll have you sit on... on their laps. 784 00:56:39,589 --> 00:56:42,500 "And then you'll feel something poking you." 785 00:56:44,219 --> 00:56:46,496 And I can't remember the context of when she said that, 786 00:56:46,596 --> 00:56:50,167 but it just was, she had this, like, anger in her towards men. 787 00:56:50,267 --> 00:56:52,460 And now, I know exactly what she was talking about, 788 00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:57,098 but as a kid, I really... I knew what she was saying was dark, and a little not right. 789 00:57:07,367 --> 00:57:11,396 I've seen her more than once jump back in fear, you know, from a man. 790 00:57:11,496 --> 00:57:14,149 She said several times over the several years, 791 00:57:14,249 --> 00:57:16,693 men, all they were out to do is ruin you, 792 00:57:16,793 --> 00:57:19,321 stay away from them, be careful of them, 793 00:57:19,421 --> 00:57:22,624 you know, that all they want is sex. 794 00:57:23,258 --> 00:57:26,836 She was always afraid of being touched. 795 00:57:28,346 --> 00:57:30,290 I remember she was standing up at this dump, 796 00:57:30,390 --> 00:57:33,043 taking a picture of some sort of incident. 797 00:57:33,143 --> 00:57:35,545 The man apparently thought she was falling. 798 00:57:35,645 --> 00:57:39,174 He reached up, and all she saw was a man reaching for her, 799 00:57:39,274 --> 00:57:41,176 and she decked him. 800 00:57:41,276 --> 00:57:43,595 She thought he was attacking her, 801 00:57:43,695 --> 00:57:45,764 and gave him a concussion, 802 00:57:45,864 --> 00:57:48,066 and sent him to the hospital. 803 00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:52,737 I would bet money that she was... 804 00:57:53,538 --> 00:57:56,691 brutalised in some way, attacked in some... 805 00:57:56,791 --> 00:57:59,945 I mean, or, you know... molested, whatever. 806 00:58:00,045 --> 00:58:03,698 I hate to say that, but something happened to her that was awful. 807 00:58:03,798 --> 00:58:06,918 Because nobody would act, like, the way she did. 808 00:58:07,510 --> 00:58:10,705 I remember some of the more strong emotional things, I'm afraid. 809 00:58:10,805 --> 00:58:16,010 It takes... It's harder to remember some of the other... 810 00:58:19,606 --> 00:58:22,467 I don't know if you want to go into this, but I will. I will. 811 00:58:26,363 --> 00:58:29,983 I mean, there were things that happened to me that were not good. 812 00:58:31,242 --> 00:58:33,728 Miss Maier was force-feeding me. 813 00:58:35,372 --> 00:58:38,817 Forcing me to eat, because I wasn't finishing my plate. 814 00:58:38,917 --> 00:58:42,862 My parents found out, and my dad got angry, but... 815 00:58:42,962 --> 00:58:46,207 My dad found out exactly how it was... 816 00:58:47,759 --> 00:58:51,371 She would hold me down, she would shove the food in my throat, 817 00:58:51,471 --> 00:58:54,591 and then she would choke me until I would swallow it. 818 00:58:55,392 --> 00:58:58,094 And she would do that over and over again. 819 00:59:02,273 --> 00:59:04,926 There was very much of a dark side to her 820 00:59:05,026 --> 00:59:07,437 that I have not gone into. 821 00:59:09,948 --> 00:59:12,350 She would lose it sometimes. 822 00:59:12,450 --> 00:59:16,021 The first time she hit me was when I was five years old, 823 00:59:16,121 --> 00:59:20,450 because I was trying to learn to tie my shoelaces. 824 00:59:21,251 --> 00:59:22,861 And I wasn't doing it right. 825 00:59:22,961 --> 00:59:24,946 And she got very frustrated with me, 826 00:59:25,046 --> 00:59:28,616 and so she started slamming my head into the side of this bookcase. 827 00:59:28,716 --> 00:59:32,912 I mean, she wouldn't hit me in the face, obviously, I didn't have bruises there, 828 00:59:33,012 --> 00:59:35,498 but she'd grab me by the wrists and swing me around the room 829 00:59:35,598 --> 00:59:38,835 and slam me into things when she got really upset about something. 830 00:59:38,935 --> 00:59:43,089 And I was eight years old before I could break her grip. 831 00:59:43,589 --> 00:59:45,425 After that, she didn't do that again. 832 00:59:45,525 --> 00:59:47,435 I was strong enough. 833 00:59:49,404 --> 00:59:52,357 I mean... she was a brilliant person, 834 00:59:53,116 --> 00:59:55,818 and I think she really cared, and I think she tried. 835 00:59:56,661 --> 00:59:59,856 And I don't know if any of the others will ever talk about that, if they... 836 00:59:59,956 --> 01:00:01,358 if it ever happened to them. 837 01:00:01,458 --> 01:00:04,452 I don't know, maybe she got it together. I'm hoping she did. 838 01:00:10,091 --> 01:00:12,118 I really hate saying these things about her, 839 01:00:12,218 --> 01:00:15,455 because I've always felt guilty about not keeping Viv for longer. 840 01:00:15,555 --> 01:00:19,876 My husband and I were talking then about having a foster child. 841 01:00:19,976 --> 01:00:24,089 Viv said "If you want to take care of somebody, why don't you take care of me?" 842 01:00:24,189 --> 01:00:26,974 And then she kind of laughed, but she meant it. 843 01:00:27,442 --> 01:00:34,015 I think she really wanted to be brought in to be a member of our family. 844 01:00:34,115 --> 01:00:40,571 But that... wasn't really what I had bargained for. 845 01:00:46,085 --> 01:00:48,496 So there it is. 846 01:00:53,468 --> 01:00:55,453 Then this little house... 847 01:00:55,553 --> 01:00:58,248 Miss Maiers lived upstairs. 848 01:00:58,348 --> 01:01:01,876 My father did provide a room for her above his office. 849 01:01:01,976 --> 01:01:04,963 I only... only had a chance to see it once. 850 01:01:05,063 --> 01:01:07,882 Back when I... I snuck up behind her. 851 01:01:07,982 --> 01:01:09,634 Cos she kept a padlock on it. 852 01:01:12,487 --> 01:01:14,689 So, yeah, this is totally different. 853 01:01:17,492 --> 01:01:19,436 This was the forbidden zone. 854 01:01:19,536 --> 01:01:21,980 No one was allowed to see where Miss Maiers lived. 855 01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:24,115 Huh. 856 01:01:24,874 --> 01:01:28,820 Miss Maier went in there and she left the door open enough for me to see, 857 01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:32,365 and the room was literally filled, floor to ceiling, with newspapers. 858 01:01:32,465 --> 01:01:34,868 See how the floor is sloped? 859 01:01:34,968 --> 01:01:38,621 I told my dad, and he said, "That's why the floor is sagging so much." 860 01:01:38,721 --> 01:01:42,292 He ended up having to put a steel post in his office, 861 01:01:42,392 --> 01:01:44,919 because the floor was sagging and he didn't know why! 862 01:01:45,019 --> 01:01:46,721 It was just totally full. 863 01:01:52,652 --> 01:01:55,521 This floor was Viv's domain. 864 01:01:56,406 --> 01:02:01,227 It occurred to me that maybe I would need to go up there when she wasn't home, 865 01:02:01,327 --> 01:02:03,488 so she grudgingly gave me a key. 866 01:02:04,080 --> 01:02:06,616 And... And so I went in. 867 01:02:08,251 --> 01:02:10,570 You could tell where she had been walking, 868 01:02:10,670 --> 01:02:15,783 and it was just this narrow path that you could just barely traverse like this. 869 01:02:15,883 --> 01:02:18,244 And where would the bed have been right here... 870 01:02:18,344 --> 01:02:21,422 stacks of newspapers, almost to the ceiling. 871 01:02:25,018 --> 01:02:28,638 You may think I'm exaggerating. No. I am not. 872 01:02:46,914 --> 01:02:51,861 Just stacked. Stacked, stacked, stacked, stacked, stacked, everywhere. 873 01:02:51,961 --> 01:02:55,490 High, you know, high stacks of paper. 874 01:02:55,590 --> 01:02:58,243 How she even could get to the paper... 875 01:02:58,343 --> 01:03:01,838 I don't even know how much she even looked at the paper. 876 01:03:09,604 --> 01:03:13,341 I began to see that she was stacking newspaper elsewhere in the house. 877 01:03:13,441 --> 01:03:17,554 In the basement, and in the back, we have a little back entryway, 878 01:03:17,654 --> 01:03:20,098 and she would stack newspaper out there. 879 01:03:20,198 --> 01:03:24,644 Now, the idea was always that there were articles she wanted to save, 880 01:03:24,744 --> 01:03:29,323 for the day when she did get around to cutting out the parts she wanted to keep. 881 01:03:30,124 --> 01:03:36,406 I... It concerned me, but I thought, "Whatever. 882 01:03:36,506 --> 01:03:38,700 "Whatever." 883 01:03:42,929 --> 01:03:47,292 I gave her a ride to her place of employment. 884 01:03:47,392 --> 01:03:51,254 I looked at her desk, and piles of stuff there. 885 01:03:51,354 --> 01:03:57,885 She was certain that her employers were coming into the room she had, 886 01:03:57,985 --> 01:04:01,347 and going through her items. 887 01:04:01,447 --> 01:04:05,977 She would rig the books and so forth on her desk, 888 01:04:06,077 --> 01:04:10,273 so that if they were moved half an inch, 889 01:04:10,373 --> 01:04:12,775 she would know that when she got back, 890 01:04:12,875 --> 01:04:15,236 or so, that was Vivian's story. 891 01:04:15,336 --> 01:04:20,825 And she was also certain that people were looking through binoculars 892 01:04:20,925 --> 01:04:24,629 and could see through the window of her room. 893 01:04:26,806 --> 01:04:29,250 She was progressively getting more and more reclusive, 894 01:04:29,350 --> 01:04:30,460 more and more of a hoarder. 895 01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:32,378 Everybody was saying, resoundingly, 896 01:04:32,478 --> 01:04:34,881 "Oh, my God, you've got to get rid of your nanny." 897 01:04:34,981 --> 01:04:38,134 I don't think that Mom and Dad really realised 898 01:04:38,234 --> 01:04:43,014 the extent to which she was living with mental illness, 899 01:04:43,114 --> 01:04:44,682 cos she was. 900 01:04:44,782 --> 01:04:47,234 She was. She was. She... 901 01:04:47,994 --> 01:04:50,237 She... 902 01:04:53,249 --> 01:04:55,910 Yeah. It was... it was a little past eccentric. 903 01:04:56,794 --> 01:04:59,947 My neighbour said, "I'm painting the bathroom, do you have newspaper?" 904 01:05:00,047 --> 01:05:02,950 I said, "Sure!" There was a huge stack right by the back door. 905 01:05:03,050 --> 01:05:05,870 I gave him a big chunk like this, I said, "Sure, go ahead." 906 01:05:05,970 --> 01:05:10,541 Well, when Viv came home, she saw that that stack of newspaper 907 01:05:10,641 --> 01:05:13,211 was shorter by three feet, or two feet or whatever, 908 01:05:13,311 --> 01:05:16,422 and she was angry and horrified. 909 01:05:16,522 --> 01:05:19,725 "Who took my papers? Who took my papers?" 910 01:05:21,152 --> 01:05:24,263 And she just went berserk. I mean, she went crazy. 911 01:05:24,363 --> 01:05:28,059 She was... I remember an outside scene with screaming and yelling, 912 01:05:28,159 --> 01:05:31,062 where she's yelling at this guy, telling him to bring them back, 913 01:05:31,162 --> 01:05:33,606 but some already had paint on them, or were ripped. 914 01:05:33,706 --> 01:05:37,151 "Now they're all covered with paint! Now I can't use those papers! 915 01:05:37,251 --> 01:05:41,080 "They're covered with paint now. How could you give him my papers?" 916 01:05:41,839 --> 01:05:46,077 So I said... I just said, "Viv, those aren't your papers. Those are my papers. 917 01:05:46,177 --> 01:05:48,746 "And there are too many papers in this house!" 918 01:05:48,846 --> 01:05:53,459 I remember my parents telling me, "Viv's not gonna be with us any more. 919 01:05:53,559 --> 01:05:56,178 "She's gotten too crazy." 920 01:05:57,021 --> 01:05:59,215 Like, not that she wasn't already crazy, 921 01:05:59,315 --> 01:06:03,261 but that the craziness has increased to a level that we can't tolerate any more. 922 01:06:03,361 --> 01:06:06,397 I remember so clearly having to say to her, "Viv... 923 01:06:08,241 --> 01:06:10,727 "I think you're going to have to look for another job." 924 01:06:10,827 --> 01:06:12,812 How hard it was to say that to her. 925 01:06:12,912 --> 01:06:16,774 But you know what? I don't think she was even surprised. 926 01:06:16,874 --> 01:06:20,278 She looked back at me, and she said, "Do you?" she said. 927 01:06:20,378 --> 01:06:22,621 "Do you?" she said. "Well... 928 01:06:23,464 --> 01:06:27,452 "then, what I want is two months' notice, 929 01:06:27,552 --> 01:06:30,663 "and two months' pay," or something like that. 930 01:06:30,763 --> 01:06:33,124 She gave me her sort of... what she wanted, 931 01:06:33,224 --> 01:06:36,627 as if she had it on the tip of her tongue and she'd figured it out. 932 01:06:36,727 --> 01:06:38,880 And I didn't know whether that was because 933 01:06:38,980 --> 01:06:41,215 she had been dismissed from positions often enough 934 01:06:41,315 --> 01:06:44,427 that she knew what to say, 935 01:06:44,527 --> 01:06:47,897 or whether she had, in a way, anticipated it. 936 01:06:49,240 --> 01:06:52,185 My husband and I and our children, after she was gone, 937 01:06:52,285 --> 01:06:55,521 do you know, we just jumped in the car and drove up to Michigan, 938 01:06:55,621 --> 01:06:57,356 which is something we never used to do, 939 01:06:57,456 --> 01:07:01,368 just because it was a huge emotional thing, not to have her... 940 01:07:02,086 --> 01:07:05,698 See, I'm still weeping about it, because I really cared about Viv. 941 01:07:05,798 --> 01:07:09,410 And I think she cared about us, and it was just one of those things, 942 01:07:09,510 --> 01:07:14,924 where she was a person who didn't fit in very well. 943 01:07:16,058 --> 01:07:19,253 She just had those edges that couldn't... 944 01:07:19,353 --> 01:07:22,215 And I think we... Well, I flatter myself, 945 01:07:22,315 --> 01:07:25,676 I think we were one of the most sympathetic, 946 01:07:25,776 --> 01:07:29,055 accepting and congenial families that she worked with. 947 01:07:29,155 --> 01:07:31,724 I don't know that. I think it may be true. 948 01:07:31,824 --> 01:07:34,902 And we couldn't make it work. 949 01:07:40,291 --> 01:07:46,030 In 1996, we were getting my mother's house ready for sale, 950 01:07:46,130 --> 01:07:51,244 and when I told Vivian, I said, "You can stay here for a couple of months. 951 01:07:51,344 --> 01:07:54,622 "I won't put it on the market yet, you know, we have to get things ready, 952 01:07:54,722 --> 01:07:58,676 "and, you know, I'm not... I'm not kicking you out, you can stay." 953 01:07:59,518 --> 01:08:02,922 Vivian was to be there, you know, and to show it, 954 01:08:03,022 --> 01:08:05,633 but she was not at all helpful with the real estate people. 955 01:08:05,733 --> 01:08:07,760 She just didn't want to let them in. 956 01:08:07,860 --> 01:08:11,964 They were calling me, saying she won't let them show the house... 957 01:08:12,364 --> 01:08:15,852 You know, "We've gotta... You've gotta do something, Judy." 958 01:08:15,952 --> 01:08:19,572 So I would call her and say, "Vivian, you have to let people see the house." 959 01:08:21,290 --> 01:08:24,777 They did manage to get in, and they did manage to sell. 960 01:08:24,877 --> 01:08:28,205 I think we closed the last day of the year. 961 01:08:32,051 --> 01:08:35,955 The lawyer called and said, "Judy, we're just afraid she's not gonna be out." 962 01:08:36,055 --> 01:08:38,757 And I said, "She'll be out. Don't worry. She will be out." 963 01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:05,735 The last time I saw her, 964 01:09:05,835 --> 01:09:08,370 I'm still unhappy about. 965 01:09:10,047 --> 01:09:13,375 It must have been, like... probably 2000. 966 01:09:14,218 --> 01:09:17,622 I was in Wilmette, going to the beach with my daughter and her children 967 01:09:17,722 --> 01:09:19,790 and four other children of her friends. 968 01:09:19,890 --> 01:09:23,669 It was a hot summer day, like, August, like, 100-degree day. 969 01:09:23,769 --> 01:09:26,756 And all of a sudden, we see this woman walking down the street. 970 01:09:26,856 --> 01:09:29,300 And immediately, we were like, "There's Vivian." 971 01:09:29,400 --> 01:09:31,602 I hadn't seen her in 30 years. 972 01:09:32,611 --> 01:09:35,272 But we recognised each other at once. 973 01:09:37,324 --> 01:09:39,769 And we both... "Oh, hi, how are you, Vivian?" 974 01:09:39,869 --> 01:09:43,022 and, "How are you, Carole?" and "It's been so long." 975 01:09:43,122 --> 01:09:45,608 We were like, "We'll, it was great, you know, to see you," 976 01:09:45,708 --> 01:09:48,110 and, er, we said, "We have... we have to get going." 977 01:09:48,210 --> 01:09:49,987 And she was like, "Please don't leave." 978 01:09:50,087 --> 01:09:52,323 She was like, "Carole!" That's my mother's name. 979 01:09:52,423 --> 01:09:54,625 "Carole, please don't leave." 980 01:09:55,134 --> 01:09:57,078 And you're with a bunch of kids, 981 01:09:57,178 --> 01:09:59,914 and they're swirling around you, and they want to go to the beach. 982 01:10:00,014 --> 01:10:02,667 It's a hot summer day, you know. You're, like, stuck. 983 01:10:02,767 --> 01:10:06,045 And she kept saying "Talk to me, let's talk, let's talk." 984 01:10:06,145 --> 01:10:09,674 And I kept saying, "I can't do it, Vivian. I have to go, I have to go." 985 01:10:09,774 --> 01:10:13,102 She kept saying, "But you're my friend, you're my friend." 986 01:10:14,737 --> 01:10:16,555 And... 987 01:10:16,655 --> 01:10:18,683 I dropped the ball. 988 01:10:18,783 --> 01:10:21,769 That's all I can say. I feel badly about it. 989 01:10:21,869 --> 01:10:27,116 And the, er... despair in her voice about seeing a friend... 990 01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:30,744 And I feel that I let her down. 991 01:10:31,587 --> 01:10:33,656 So I proceeded to go to the beach with the kids. 992 01:10:33,756 --> 01:10:36,367 I said, "Follow us," but she didn't wanna do that, so... 993 01:10:36,467 --> 01:10:39,128 that was the end of that one. 994 01:10:39,762 --> 01:10:43,624 I do remember once she wouldn't tell me where we were going. 995 01:10:43,724 --> 01:10:45,801 "I don't want to tell you. It's a surprise." 996 01:10:46,811 --> 01:10:49,054 She took me to the stock yards. 997 01:10:51,398 --> 01:10:54,635 It didn't come into my consciousness that, 998 01:10:54,735 --> 01:10:57,604 "Oh, this is where they go to kill the animals." 999 01:10:59,573 --> 01:11:02,735 There was a, trailer full of sheep. 1000 01:11:05,329 --> 01:11:08,816 I do remember guys poking at them with sticks 1001 01:11:08,916 --> 01:11:11,410 to get them out down this long ramp. 1002 01:11:13,170 --> 01:11:15,156 After they were done offloading the sheep, 1003 01:11:15,256 --> 01:11:17,916 they started throwing out a dead sheep. 1004 01:11:18,759 --> 01:11:20,794 The one that got trampled. 1005 01:11:22,429 --> 01:11:24,798 That was the first time I ever saw death. 1006 01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:30,804 Looking back, thinking about it, it didn't bother me. 1007 01:11:31,605 --> 01:11:34,600 It was just kind of odd, I couldn't understand it. 1008 01:11:37,361 --> 01:11:41,015 I've always been a critter person, and these are my guys, the sheep. 1009 01:11:45,828 --> 01:11:49,774 The end of her life was something that I worried about when she worked for me. 1010 01:11:49,874 --> 01:11:52,902 I thought, "How can this end for her?" 1011 01:11:53,002 --> 01:11:54,612 I don't think it had a happy ending. 1012 01:11:54,712 --> 01:11:58,199 I was very glad that these men that she took care of when they were little kids 1013 01:11:58,299 --> 01:12:00,618 kind of came to her rescue. 1014 01:12:00,718 --> 01:12:05,381 They got her an apartment and paid for her rent. 1015 01:12:13,981 --> 01:12:16,383 - Do you... do you live in the area? - Yes. 1016 01:12:16,483 --> 01:12:19,720 Do you remember a woman who used to sit on this bench a lot, 1017 01:12:19,820 --> 01:12:21,680 wearing a big floppy hat? 1018 01:12:21,780 --> 01:12:23,849 Was she the French lady? 1019 01:12:23,949 --> 01:12:25,476 Yeah, I remember her. 1020 01:12:25,576 --> 01:12:30,239 People who still, live around here, yeah, we remember her. 1021 01:12:30,998 --> 01:12:34,451 She was here a lot, sitting on the bench. 1022 01:12:35,169 --> 01:12:37,830 But I don't think anybody really talked to her. 1023 01:12:38,297 --> 01:12:40,908 There's a lot of eccentric people around here, 1024 01:12:41,008 --> 01:12:43,168 and I just thought she was one of them. 1025 01:12:44,053 --> 01:12:46,088 You knew that, just leave her alone. 1026 01:12:48,724 --> 01:12:50,835 Sometimes she'd be at the dumpsters. 1027 01:12:50,935 --> 01:12:54,004 You'd ask her, you know, "Do you need help?" or "Do you need food?" 1028 01:12:54,104 --> 01:12:56,932 And she would just kind of yell at you in French. 1029 01:12:57,816 --> 01:12:59,260 How'd you know her? 1030 01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:01,178 Just from seeing her in the neighbourhood. 1031 01:13:01,278 --> 01:13:04,056 - And you'd sit with her? - Well, I'd always sit on her bench, 1032 01:13:04,156 --> 01:13:08,018 and she'd sit there, and it took weeks or months before she'd even speak to me. 1033 01:13:08,118 --> 01:13:11,063 I was there in the alley all the time, going through the garbage, 1034 01:13:11,163 --> 01:13:14,163 so I had a bunch of old clothes, and I had a wool hat, one time, I gave her. 1035 01:13:14,250 --> 01:13:17,987 And she took it, she said, "Oh, that's great, I'll wear that when I sleep." 1036 01:13:18,087 --> 01:13:20,114 She was very short with people. 1037 01:13:20,214 --> 01:13:23,367 She was funny, though. Nice lady. 1038 01:13:23,467 --> 01:13:26,495 When I was riding my bike, sometimes I'd cross her path. 1039 01:13:26,595 --> 01:13:29,874 And she'd yell to me, "Get a bell! Get a bell!" 1040 01:13:29,974 --> 01:13:32,835 And sometimes, I'd be out in the alley in the winter, 1041 01:13:32,935 --> 01:13:37,590 and she'd see me without a hat, and she'd yell, "Get a hat! Get a hat!" 1042 01:13:37,690 --> 01:13:40,176 - She was about that bell on the bike. - Yes. 1043 01:13:40,276 --> 01:13:43,262 Well, who would have known that she was actually a great artist, 1044 01:13:43,362 --> 01:13:45,055 and she'd come to dumpster diving? 1045 01:13:45,155 --> 01:13:47,808 - That's the sad... - I mean, sitting on the park bench, 1046 01:13:47,908 --> 01:13:50,728 literally, she'd go across the street, she'd get a can of food... 1047 01:13:50,828 --> 01:13:54,231 What did she have one day? It was, like, corned beef hash or something. 1048 01:13:54,331 --> 01:13:57,693 I remember, right out of the can, not even warm it up, with a spoon. 1049 01:13:57,793 --> 01:13:59,796 And said it was delicious. 1050 01:14:03,549 --> 01:14:06,335 She was much more damaged than I thought. 1051 01:14:07,928 --> 01:14:11,798 And I have a lot more empathy for her... 1052 01:14:17,229 --> 01:14:20,724 I just think... What a lonely lady. 1053 01:14:22,234 --> 01:14:24,561 You know? Incredibly lonely. 1054 01:14:25,654 --> 01:14:28,482 And misunderstood. 1055 01:14:30,367 --> 01:14:33,395 So... Yeah, I think... I mean, now, if I were to see her today, 1056 01:14:33,495 --> 01:14:36,615 after this, I wouldn't be as hard on her, probably. 1057 01:14:41,420 --> 01:14:42,905 Somebody called me and said, 1058 01:14:43,005 --> 01:14:46,158 "The old lady in the park, she fell, she kind of passed out. 1059 01:14:46,258 --> 01:14:48,494 "The ambulance is out there." 1060 01:14:48,594 --> 01:14:51,622 So I went across the street, and at that point, 1061 01:14:51,722 --> 01:14:54,375 they were loading her onto the little cart there. 1062 01:14:54,475 --> 01:14:57,670 And she was telling the people, the paramedics and such, 1063 01:14:57,770 --> 01:15:00,464 that she did not want to go, she wanted to go home. 1064 01:15:00,564 --> 01:15:03,092 And they said that she has to go with. 1065 01:15:03,192 --> 01:15:05,928 And she looked at me as if to say, "Can you do something?" 1066 01:15:06,028 --> 01:15:07,805 But, nothing I could do about it. 1067 01:15:07,905 --> 01:15:11,400 I asked the paramedics, they said, "No, she has to go." 1068 01:15:14,995 --> 01:15:16,772 And then, but that was it. 1069 01:15:16,872 --> 01:15:19,449 I mean, they put her in the ambulance and took her away. 1070 01:15:20,334 --> 01:15:22,903 And after the fact, a lot of people in the neighbourhood said, 1071 01:15:23,003 --> 01:15:25,956 "Whatever happened to the old lady?" and nobody ever knew. 1072 01:15:51,323 --> 01:15:56,186 You have to try to draw, from the evidence you have, 1073 01:15:56,286 --> 01:15:59,072 some understanding of the individual. 1074 01:16:00,541 --> 01:16:04,278 I think her pictures show a tenderness, 1075 01:16:04,378 --> 01:16:08,198 instant alertness to human tragedies 1076 01:16:08,298 --> 01:16:12,461 and those moments of generosity and sweetness. 1077 01:16:13,429 --> 01:16:18,592 I see her as an incredibly watchful, observant, caring person. 1078 01:16:19,435 --> 01:16:24,389 And probably why she was a nanny was that she had those capacities. 1079 01:16:26,275 --> 01:16:29,853 In 1962, when she took a lot of the pictures... 1080 01:16:31,280 --> 01:16:33,774 the kids would always play in the ravines. 1081 01:16:34,992 --> 01:16:37,444 It's the most beautiful spot in the world. 1082 01:16:41,290 --> 01:16:44,735 You know, instead of this straight-edged suburban community, 1083 01:16:44,835 --> 01:16:48,906 you always went there cos you wanted the kids to have a little touch of nature. 1084 01:16:49,006 --> 01:16:51,742 You know, wild nature. 1085 01:16:51,842 --> 01:16:55,587 There was a patch of wild strawberries somewhere in there. 1086 01:16:59,558 --> 01:17:03,095 And I think she liked it so much, that's why they buried her there. 1087 01:17:05,564 --> 01:17:08,934 It's a place that they remembered she was happy. 1088 01:17:11,069 --> 01:17:13,680 Now, you tell me how you can live forever. 1089 01:17:13,780 --> 01:17:16,183 Come on. 1090 01:17:16,283 --> 01:17:19,728 She might have gotten to the end of her life and thought, 1091 01:17:19,828 --> 01:17:23,990 "Why didn't I try to get that work out there?" 1092 01:17:24,750 --> 01:17:27,486 Some people's character prevents them 1093 01:17:27,586 --> 01:17:32,874 from pushing that little bit you need to push to get the work seen. 1094 01:17:33,592 --> 01:17:36,161 You know, she didn't defend herself as an artist. 1095 01:17:36,261 --> 01:17:38,547 She just did the work. 1096 01:17:39,264 --> 01:17:41,425 A canon is often established. 1097 01:17:41,850 --> 01:17:43,460 And so, when someone comes in, 1098 01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:46,130 there's always the sense that they're secondary figures. 1099 01:17:46,230 --> 01:17:49,258 But I don't feel her as secondary. 1100 01:17:49,358 --> 01:17:55,188 When I look at the pictures, I always feel something primary. 1101 01:17:58,200 --> 01:18:02,938 I think that the work is so good that it's really winning over a lot of people 1102 01:18:03,038 --> 01:18:06,316 who were... were dismissive of it previously. 1103 01:18:06,416 --> 01:18:08,535 Where it'll wind up, who knows? 1104 01:18:10,045 --> 01:18:12,364 Much of the art world establishment 1105 01:18:12,464 --> 01:18:14,825 still hasn't accepted Vivian Maier's work. 1106 01:18:14,925 --> 01:18:19,872 But people don't care. They're not waiting for that validation from institutions. 1107 01:18:19,972 --> 01:18:23,425 They're claiming Vivian Maier's work for themselves. 1108 01:18:25,185 --> 01:18:27,387 Her work is now in galleries in New York. 1109 01:18:32,651 --> 01:18:35,645 It can be seen in LA. 1110 01:18:40,742 --> 01:18:42,853 One in particular that I bought, which I love, 1111 01:18:42,953 --> 01:18:45,272 there's an abject poverty in the frame, 1112 01:18:45,372 --> 01:18:48,366 but there's also a happiness in spite of it all. 1113 01:18:50,794 --> 01:18:52,946 Her work is being seen around the world. 1114 01:18:53,046 --> 01:18:56,700 London, Germany, Denmark. 1115 01:18:56,800 --> 01:19:00,420 They're embracing it, and they're embracing Vivian Maier. 1116 01:19:07,811 --> 01:19:09,721 Oui, oui, oui. 1117 01:19:42,346 --> 01:19:44,589 Oui, ca c'est sur. 1118 01:19:47,476 --> 01:19:50,128 Maybe this is the best way of all for her. 1119 01:19:50,228 --> 01:19:53,757 To have it happen after she's died. 1120 01:19:53,857 --> 01:19:55,759 That would probably make Viv happiest. 1121 01:19:55,859 --> 01:20:00,438 Cos in her own life, the attention, I think she would have found overwhelming. 1122 01:20:02,449 --> 01:20:04,434 Viv was supposed to be downtrodden, right? 1123 01:20:04,534 --> 01:20:06,353 She was, like, a nanny. 1124 01:20:06,453 --> 01:20:10,399 That's not considered to be a pretty high-ranking position in life. 1125 01:20:10,499 --> 01:20:12,442 Not married. 1126 01:20:12,542 --> 01:20:14,953 Not any social life to speak of. 1127 01:20:15,671 --> 01:20:20,117 She didn't have these measures of status 1128 01:20:20,217 --> 01:20:22,460 that people aspire to. 1129 01:20:23,261 --> 01:20:25,839 But she didn't have to compromise one bit. 1130 01:20:27,015 --> 01:20:28,750 She did what she wanted. 1131 01:20:28,850 --> 01:20:33,388 That's what she taught me, is that she got the life she wanted. She had it. 1132 01:20:38,026 --> 01:20:41,021 I understand a lot more about her. 1133 01:20:44,157 --> 01:20:50,480 But why was this person so private, 1134 01:20:50,580 --> 01:20:55,327 yet so prolific in an artform that she never shared? 1135 01:20:56,378 --> 01:20:58,405 Who knows? 1136 01:20:58,505 --> 01:21:00,824 She did it so it wouldn't be forgotten. 1137 01:21:00,924 --> 01:21:03,209 And... and here, it's not forgotten. 1138 01:21:05,095 --> 01:21:06,955 As she was photographing, 1139 01:21:07,055 --> 01:21:11,501 she was seeing just how close you can come into somebody's space, 1140 01:21:11,601 --> 01:21:13,086 and make a picture of them. 1141 01:21:13,186 --> 01:21:15,589 That tells me a lot about her. 1142 01:21:15,689 --> 01:21:19,593 It tells me that she could go into a space with a total stranger 1143 01:21:19,693 --> 01:21:23,021 and get them to accommodate her by being themselves, 1144 01:21:23,530 --> 01:21:27,392 and generate this kind of moment, 1145 01:21:27,492 --> 01:21:32,739 you know, where two presences were actually kind of vibrating together. 1146 01:21:38,044 --> 01:21:40,413 And then she's gone. 1147 01:21:48,346 --> 01:21:51,083 Well, I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. 1148 01:21:51,183 --> 01:21:54,044 We have to make room for other people. It's a wheel. 1149 01:21:54,144 --> 01:21:58,223 You get on, you have to go to the end, and then somebody else takes your place. 1150 01:21:58,273 --> 01:22:02,102 And now I am going to close and quickly run next door to do my work.