It would probably be foolish to try to make a biography of Lee Miller – the surrealist photographer, model, muse and journalist who was uncommitted and whose numerous travels demonstrated that she was reluctant to commit herself. leeHowever, it refrains from presenting a comprehensive portrait and instead focuses on an indelible chapter in Miller’s life: her war years.

Not that we don’t get a glimpse into her previous life. When we first saw Miller (played brilliantly by Kate Winslet) in leeShe is in France enjoying an atmospheric lunch picnic with friends from her surrealist circle, including fashion doyenne Solange D’Ayen (Marion Cotillard) and the Eluards (Noémie Merlant and Vincent Colombe). They introduce her to the British painter Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård), with whom she later settles in London.

Noémie Merlant as Nusch Éluard, Marion Cotillard as Solange d’Ayen, Kate Winslet as Lee Miller and Alexander Skarsgård as Roland Penrose in lee (2024). Photo: by Kimberley French.

But her idyll is disrupted by the outbreak of World War II, which touches something deep within the tough, restless artist. Bypassing a law that prohibits British civilians from entering active combat zones (she is American), Miller heads to the front in 1944, together with Life Photojournalist David Scherman (Andy Samberg), armed with her Rolleiflex camera and a press pass that identifies her as a correspondent for the British fashionTheir documentation and testimony of conflicts in Paris, Munich and Hungary form the core of many lee.

The decision to highlight Miller’s war work was a conscious one, director Ellen Kuras told me, and was the result of her conversations with Winslet. This focus “would allow us to see her, what drove her and the emotional evolution of her life,” she said in a video call.

In fact, the film’s brutal war scenes show not only the violence and devastation that Miller observed, but also what caught her eye as a photographer – not necessarily action and explosions, but the people and landscapes scarred by war. lee follows her as she captures, among other things, the interior of an RAF women’s hostel, a lonely nurse in front of a medical tent and a girl who survived the bombing of her village.

“What was different about Lee was what she looked at. Lee was interested in what was happening outside the battlefield. She gave us a view of war that we would never have seen otherwise,” Kuras said. “War affects everyone. And Lee understood that.”

Lee Miller wears a special helmet borrowed from US Army photographer Don Sykes (Sergeant), Normandy, France, 1944, by an unknown photographer. Photo: © Lee Miller Archives, England 2024. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk.

Fortunately, the production team had rare and unrestricted access to the Lee Miller archives, which were managed and overseen by Antony Penrose, Lee and Roland’s son. When I reached Penrose via Zoom, he recalled how Winslet regularly visited the physical archives in East Sussex in the UK for in-depth reading and research.

“We have a lot of researchers who come to the archive and normally it’s a very linear process. But with Kate it went in all sorts of directions,” he said. “I realized that she was obviously building her perception of Lee’s personality from the work, but the answers I gave to her questions were important. She let Lee emerge from her photographs and her writings.”

Lee Miller, Artillery observers with telephones at the Hotel Ambassadeurs direct fire on Grand Bey and the old town of St. Malo, Hotel Ambassadeurs, St. Malo, France, 1944. Photo: © Lee Miller Archives, England 2024. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk.

Often overlooked, noted both Kuras and Penrose, was the fact that Miller also wrote and filed reports from the front – an aspect that was leeHer son recalled finding in her files a manuscript about the Siege of San Marlowe that was unmarked. He assumed it was written by “some high-ranking Life When he read the “Magazine Reporter” article, he was stunned to learn that his mother had written it. Kuras was also shocked by Miller’s account of the liberation of Paris, which profoundly questioned the meaning of freedom.

“She had a philosophical perspective,” Kuras said of Miller’s writings. “They were very eloquent and showed an uncanny way of looking at the world.”

Andy Samberg as David E. Scherman and Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in lee (2024). Photo: Kimberley French.

This sight is clearly evident in one of Miller’s most famous wartime photographs, in which she is seen bathing in Hitler’s bathtub, her boots, dirty from marching through the camps, soiling the Führer’s fluffy white carpet. lee recreates the creation of the photograph with fine scales of sensitivity and gravity. Kuras, who comes from cinematography (she photographed Don’t forget me!) clearly understands how the camera can serve as a medium for conveying meaning – in the same way as Miller.

“Kate and I had talked at length about Lee Miller being someone who could have directed that scene. She would have recognized its importance,” Kuras said. “You see Kate as Lee processing that as she turns on the water (to fill the bathtub). You see her coming up with the idea that she’s going to direct it. She really understood the importance behind taking that photo.”

Andrea Riseborough as Audrey Withers and Kate Winslet as Lee Miller in lee (2024). Photo: Kimberley French.

The effects of the war on Miller after her return to London are also described in detail here. There is her pain when she learns that British fashion won’t publish her most gruesome images (Andrea Riseborough delivers an iron-clad performance as the magazine’s editor, Audrey Withers); and there are hints of the post-traumatic stress disorder that would haunt Miller for the rest of her life. Her psychological scars, which manifested themselves in alcoholism, were so strong that she never spoke to her son (played by Josh O’ Connor) about her work in the war.

Actually, lee is as much Miller’s story as Penrose’s realization of what his mother did during the war – here the story unfolds in a frame story that seems contrived but is emotionally powerful. After her death in 1977, Penrose dug up her trove of war photographs and artifacts that had been stashed away and forgotten in an attic; the discovery, he said, completely upended his understanding of his mother.

Lee Miller, Fire Masks, 21 Downshire Hill, London, England, 1941. Photo: © Lee Miller Archives, England 2024. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk.

“For the first 25 years of her life with me, she suffered from alcohol abuse and depression, which was actually a result of post-traumatic stress disorder that we didn’t know about. I just thought she was a useless drinker and we had a very hostile relationship. We argued like crazy,” he recalled. “What a waste of time.”

Mother and son reconciled later in life: she taught him how to use a camera and met her first granddaughter. leeOf the imaginary conversations between Miller and her son, Penrose said, “He asks all the questions that I so wish I could have asked my mother when she was alive, but I didn’t even know how to phrase the question.”

Josh O’Connor in lee (2024). Photo: Kimberley French.

Penrose has spent decades preserving and promoting Miller’s work since the 1980s. The life of Lee Miller in 1985 and compilation Lee Miller’s War in 2005 while he was organizing exhibitions of her work around the world. And through her photography, especially her war images, he got to know her better as an artist and as a person, he said.

“The war photos are what I would call applied passion. She has a burning desire to show the world what happened, and she applies that passion to create these images that are so clear and powerful. It’s the culmination of everything she’s ever done as a fashion photographer or as a surrealist,” he said. “Like many surrealist things, the images have so many layers. They’re a challenge to decipher.”