It is fitting that Kate Winslet, an actress considered among the best for her transformative performances, took on the challenge of portraying the complex life of Miller in the film ‘Lee’. Winslet not only stars in this film, but also plays a key role behind the scenes as a producer, ensuring that Miller’s story is told with the depth and authenticity it deserves.
Inspired by the 1985 biography that Antony Penrose wrote about his extraordinary mother, 'The Lives of Lee Miller,' Winslet acknowledges her surprise that no one had brought her story to the big screen. "I have always wondered why a film hadn't been made about her. When the opportunity arose, I went to see her son, Anthony, who lives a few hours from where I live, and he told me that he always thought that if a film was made about her, I would play her. That sparked in me a strong sense of obligation and responsibility because he always had a complicated relationship with his mother. She was not an easy mother. She had just returned from the war when she became a mother. Anthony says he had a caustic relationship with her. It wasn't until 1977, when she died, that he discovered in the attic of his house boxes and boxes of 60,000 negatives and photos of her recounting everything she had experienced during the war. He never knew until then," says the actress.
"I wanted to elevate Lee, to move her away from the male gaze. When I searched for Lee on Google in 2015, she was only talked about as a model or muse of Man Ray. It is likely that even today she is still described as that former lover who used her, or as a Vogue cover. That diminishes her, infantilizes her. These are labels that have remained attached to her image. I didn't think that was right because it was just a small moment in her life when she was 20 years old. She didn't even like being a model. Even then she was taking photographs, a job she had learned from her father," shared Winslet.
The British actress gave us her opinion on the importance of bringing Lee Miller's feminist sentiment to the screen. "This is a story about women, for women, and I couldn't have done it any other way. In my soul, I knew I had to choose a woman to direct it, and Ellen Kuras, who has a fabulous career as a cinematographer, was perfect. We have been friends since the filming of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' and even then we started talking about Lee Miller. For us, this collaboration made sense because we were looking for the same narrative tone. We were interested in telling who Miller was, not how she was perceived."
Raped by a babysitter when she was seven years old and deprived of her boyfriend in a strange boating accident as a teenager, Lee Miller was a pioneer as a war photographer. "She had many formative experiences, even before her second act as a great war correspondent. Her visual work was fascinating to give voice to the victims of conflict against all odds. Her work was the most important and that is something extraordinary. I couldn't imagine that what she had done for history wouldn't be told as it should. I hope to have done it with the same truth with which she lived."
The beauty of this extraordinary woman has overshadowed her passion for truth with reductionist labels after her time as a model in the pages of Vogue or her romantic relationship with Man Ray. "I was not interested in being a muse, a lover, or a model. I did not want the male gaze. Lee's voice was a voice of whiskey, of cigarettes, in which you could identify the trauma she carried from the war. She was the woman of all the lives she lived and that was reflected in her body. She was a woman free in her affections, comfortable within her own skin, and although she experienced extraordinary traumas from childhood, she was able to not let that define her. She was born with her eyes open to the world, able to live life to the fullest and paid the price because her PTSD would haunt her for the rest of her life, even when she later had a facelift and became a famous Le Cordon Bleu chef. She had many, many lives. Someone will make a twelve-episode series in the future because her life is very extensive," explained the actress.
During his historic career, Man Ray covered a variety of mediums, including painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, film, poetry, and prose. A fashion photographer in Paris, he fled to Los Angeles when World War II broke out, while his ex-partner, Lee Miller, chose to go and capture the horror of the battlefield. "I have spent many years preparing this film, trying to get the best team for a project in which I have been involved from beginning to end. We were very clear that we could not make a direct biography, but tell a story where we could distill his truth. Once that process was clear and the script finished to seek funding, which is another damn story, I knew I had to immerse myself in his archives, in his clothes, in his camera, in his letters," Kate Winslet told us at a press event in Los Angeles.
Miller took us through his portraits to the devastation of the Second World War and did so from the pages of Vogue magazine. He was present at the liberation of the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, where his photographs brought to light the atrocities of the Holocaust for a global audience. "If it hadn't been for her, we wouldn't have access to those stories. It's possible that those stories would never have been told with eyes of empathy."
One of Miller's most famous images is the photograph she took of herself naked in Adolf Hitler's bathtub in his Munich apartment in 1945, shortly after his death. Winslet spoke about this iconic moment and said, "That portrays Lee." The image became a symbol of Miller's irreverent approach to life, always challenging norms with an unwavering commitment to history. "There were some scenes we had to do, like when Lee reveals the rape she suffered as a child, that were very difficult. I was scared, even though I was ready to shoot, but it was fucking horrible, terrible, because Lee never shared it. Her mother told her she should never speak of it. During the production of this film, I met many, many survivors of sexual assault who explained to me how they carried the shame all their lives. They were told never to speak of it. That generation kept absolute silence in the face of horror. And I believe that injustice is what drove Lee throughout her life and motivated her to go to war. She had the ability to detect evil from a mile away. She never allowed the truth not to be told by others, that's why her voice is so important."
Winslet herself was deeply affected by playing Miller. "Now that I'm promoting the movie, I can't believe we've finished and I don't have to keep doing it. I got very involved as a producer. This film has been part of my life for a long time and now, as I'm having a moment of pause and can really talk about what it was like to play her, I realize the incredible experience I've had. There are things in me that I constantly think about and hope will always be present in me because she was a great inspiration for me. Her ability to live life with resilience, compassion, and power, and how she redefined femininity 80 years ago, is admirable. That's how I always wanted to live my life. That's how I am with my friends. That's how I raise my daughters; with eyes wide open, without judging people, and with kindness. That's how Lee was. It's impossible not to carry parts of her," confessed the actress.
"Lee" is directed by Ellen Kuras and stars Josh O'Connor, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgård, and Marion Cotillard alongside Winslet. It premiered for the first time at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, but Winslet decided to wait a year and secure a proper theatrical release. This project represents an important recount of the story of a forgotten woman, shedding light on the complexities of her life and the remarkable impact she had on history that probably only Kate Winslet could have told.
"In the family archive, we found a lot of material to develop the story; from her clothing and uniform, to photos and negatives. We also had the help of Anthony Penthouse, who wrote the book on which this script is based. It was incredible to delve into Lee's archive, into her documents. Her granddaughter, who is two years younger than me, called me one day with a surprise. When I arrived at her house, she showed me a box with all of Lee's clothes that I had seen in the photographs. They had found them in a box in the attic of her house. We laid them out on the floor and I called the costume designer to digitally recreate each of her outfits. Everything that appears in the film is completely authentic. It had to be. Not only because we had these resources at our disposal, but because it made no sense to make this movie about a woman who refuses to hide from the truth and mask part of her story."
1985
It was the year when Antony Penrose's biography of his mother, 'The Lives of Lee Miller', was published, which inspired the movie.