A Real Pain

Lee : Not Just a Muse

An extraordinary performance by Kate Winslet as the charismatic and pioneering photojournalist, Lee Miller. Though somewhat formulaic, Lee is a visually arresting and ultimately sobering experience. Winslet portrays Lee Miller as a woman who finally comes into her own whilst doggedly pursuing the truth.

When Lee Miller was discovered in 1929 at the age of 19 in New York, the editor of American Vogue Edna Woolam Chase was looking for somebody to represent the “modern woman”. This moniker can most definitely be applied to Lee Miller. From finding fame as a model during the jazz age, to working amongst the surrealists of Paris, becoming an artist and extraordinary photojournalist; Lee Miller was at the epicentre of the major cultural and political events of the early 20th century. Not unlike other female artists of the time ( Leonora Carrington, Jacqueline Lamba), Miller has been mentioned in the same breath as the men with whom she had relationships or known simply as a ‘muse’. Most notably she is associated with the surrealist photographer Man Ray, as well as her relationship with Picasso. In fact, it was Lee that approached Man Ray for an apprenticeship. She collaborated with him on the solarisation photography method and sometimes even took on assignments for him. After returning to New York, she became a noted photographer in her own right, even influencing other famous artists with her imagery.

Lee challenges this narrative of Lee as muse to great artists and instead tells her story from the female gaze. It is noteworthy that Kate Winslet , who executive produced Lee, requested Ellen Kuras to direct this film. They had already worked together when Kuras was cinematographer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It is fitting that that Kuras would choose to direct her first film about a female photographer as she is a noted cinematographer with a background in photography. In this context, Kuras possesses a unique insight, knowledge and experience of her subject.

Indeed, the film puts the audience in the minds-eye of Lee as she composes her photographs. Whilst Lee is composing a shot, the audience is aware of how Lee created a photography- from the lighting, composition and positioning. The camera switches to a p.o.v. of the Leica viewfinder- thus showing us what she saw. It works to great effect throughout the film.

We begin in the South France where Lee is amongst her bohemian circle of Parisian friends, living a life of “drinking, fucking and taking photographs”. The camera luxuriates in the dappled sunlight of the Cote d ‘Azur and moves freely- following the friends on their adventures as they enjoy the Mediterranean lifestyle. This contrasts with the grayscale and dark colours of a blitzed London and bombed out Germany. [Interestingly, the cinematographer for this film is Pawel Edelman who photographed Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. A camera shot of a bombed German street is reminiscent of when Adrien Brody emerges from his hiding place and steps into the bombed out street in Krakow]. Lee’s circle of friends include Solange D’ Ayen, played by the effervescent Marion Cotillard who threatens to steal each scene she is in. Also included are Paul and Nimsch Eluard (Noemie Erland). During lunch, in walks a tall Englishman Roland Penrose, the English artist and art dealer (played by Alexander Skarsgard whose English accent wobbles slightly). This carefree existence in the Mediterranean is put under threat by the approach of Hitler and the invasion. As they all sit around, they espouse declarations of love, sex and art, not war. It is the last time they will all be together.

Lee follows Roland to a blitzed London where she takes her photography samples to Vogue and its editor, the formidable Audrey Withers. Audrey is played by Andrea Riseborough who is all limbs in her 1940s suits and painted red nails. She plays her with elegance and humour. She and Lee share an instant rapport and develop a great friendship.

Kuras foregrounds how Lee encounters obstacles due to her sex. She manages to get onto the military base on the English coast, but isn’t permitted to attend the press briefings. She wanders around the base-camp and comes upon a hut that says “no men allowed”. Walking inside, she finds women’s underwear hanging in the window and photographs this scene- highlighting women’s experiences in a practical and humorous sense. This is underlined when she returns to the Vogue office when discussing these shots, Cecil Beaton- who just happens to be in the office (played in a waspish cameo by Samuel Barnett) questions the inclusion. However, Withers retorts “We don’t all have maids or hot water.”

During WW2 , there were several female journalists who were determined to see combat and and made it to Europe whatever way they could. American journalist Martha Gelhorn traveled to France on D-day and famously reported on Dachau concentration camp, for Colliers magazine. She never forgot the horrors of what she saw at that camp.

As a woman, Lee undoubtedly brought a unique perspective to her photography. Perhaps she had an instinct for seeing the immediate effects of conflict and how women and children are the collateral damage of war. Through her work with Vogue, Lee highlighted women’s contributions to the war effort and also informed the magazines female readership of what was happening in the world.

Almost immediately when Audrey gives Lee the job- she takes the now-famous and surrealistic photograph of the two women with gas masks by a bomb shelter. She takes a picture of W.R.E.N.S. who are patrolling under the Air raid lights. This is where she meets David Sherman.

Unfortunately, Lee is an example of a striking lead performance in a less than exciting script. Kate Winslet portrays Miller as earthy, with a robust sense of humour and unlimited self-confidence. She affects a Veronica Lake-like husky voice accompanied by an endless cigarette in her mouth. Winslet is able to depict the emotional arc that Lee experiences- from care-free bohemian to rule breaker and ultimately trauma. There are several writers credited with the script, which might account for its quality. It can be quite expositional. One of the screenwriters is Liz Hannah, who wrote The Post, based on the life of Katherine Graham- another pioneering woman in the male-dominated world of publishing. It would have been extraordinary to see Lee’s whole life on film and metamorphosis, but this would warrant a whole tv series.

Lee is not a biopic because it focuses solely on the decade where she developed as an extraordinary photojournalist. Subsequently the films plot is structured around her famous photographs during wartime. Alongside the war years, we also see an older Lee, in the 1970s, pouring vodka as she speaks to a young man (played beautifully by Josh O’Connor)who we assume is a journalist. At the end of the film, Lee asks him about his mother and it becomes apparent that this is in fact her son Anthony Penrose having an imaginary conversation with his mother about her life. Penrose discovered hundreds of photographs hidden in his mothers attic after she died and continued to preserve his mothers legacy. This final scene is fascinating because it provides a complex and nuanced view of Lee as a mother. It is apparent that she was perhaps a remote and troubled figure to her son, but she does not apologise and there are no final judgements.

When Lee arrives in a liberated Paris, she immediately looks for Solange. She finds her in her decimated apartment. She is crouched over the floor, clearing up. Skeletal and traumatised, she tells Lee that “they’re all gone”. After reuniting with the Eluard’s also, she hears of the disappearances- jews, homosexuals, gypsies- “anyone who didn’t agree”. Lee telephones Audrey that this isn’t over and sets off with Scherman through Germany.

The most chilling scene is when Lee and Scherman arrive at Dachau. The camera pans up towards a gate, of which the Nazi eagle sits atop. Once the camera pans to the cattle cars, it is evident that we are at a concentration camp. Covering her mouth due to the smell, the camera almost walks with Lee as she slowly takes in the scene. American soldiers pull back the doors of the cattle-trucks to reveal a pile of corpses. Despite her shock, Lee climbs into the car to get her shot. She walks soberly around the camp with Scherman by her side as they document the horror, with a sense of duty to do so.

Following Dachau, they arrive in Hitler’s Munich apartment where American soldiers are staying. Lee finds being in Hitler’s apartment extraordinary and notes the furnishings with humour. She then ushers Sherman into Hitler’s bathroom to set up a photograph. She positions a portrait of Hitler onto the bathtub and leaves her boots with the mud from Dachau- on the bathroom mat. Whilst Lee is clearly enjoying this, Scherman has some trouble with this. He breaks down in tears because as a Jewish man, it is all too appalling.

Having been a successful model, Lee was unique in understanding both sides of the camera. In her conversation with her son Anthony, she mentions the transactional nature of interviews. In Lee’s case, this could apply to the process of being photographed. Lee had been on both sides of the camera. She could therefore understand what it was like to be photographed, as well as sympathising with the trauma the women felt that she photographed. Lee had a sensitivity and understanding, possibly because of her own trauma. She wanted to show the damage, the unvarnished truth. For example, Lee falls upon a crowd of angry French villagers who appear to be shouting ‘whore’. As she pushes to the front of the crowd, Lee notices the young woman she was speaking with before. It becomes evident that the men are taunting what they see as collaborationist women . They sit the women down on the chair and she locks eyes with Lee as she witnesses her hair being cut off, she takes the picture. The look she gives is an intense, haunted stare.When she is in Dachau, she follows a woman carrying bread back to a hut. Walking tentatively into the hut, she sees a group of women and girls huddled on the floor, clearly starving and devouring loaves of bread. She focuses on a young girl, who in turn is terrified of Lee. She approaches her slowly and removes her helmet- to show she is a woman just like her. Slowly, the girl relaxes and Lee takes her photograph.

Lee is clearly deeply affected by what she has seen in post-war Europe. When she returns to England after the war, she sits alone amongst the many photographs she has taken in Germany. Smoking a cigarette and drinking whisky, she has a haunted look in her eye. Winslet manages to communicate the weight of the tragedy she has seen without any words. Nowadays, we might say that she suffered with P.T.S.D- like many others who have seen war. The film suggests that her way of coping was with alcohol. This film made me think of the recent film “A Private War” about the late Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin- who was killed in Syria. A Private War depicts the truth about her time in Aleppo and her desire for the rest of the world to know what was happening there. The film also focuses on how she dealt with what she saw from the time she Iost her eye in Sri Lanka. It shows her relationships and how she managed her trauma thorough alcohol and medication.

When Lee returns to London she is furious when she discovers Audrey has not printed her photographs of the concentration camps. At the end of the war there was no appetite for pictures of the extermination camps- Western governments simply wanted to move on. It wasn’t until broadcasts like Richard Dimbleby’s famous BBC broadcast from Bergen Belsen and Ed Murrow’s from Buchenwald that people began to take notice.

One of the questions that arises from this film is: what exactly drove Lee and what was the source of her tenacity? She clearly had a desire to get close to the action- to see the truth for herself. Even stronger was her passion to have these photographs seen by people. The answer is first alluded to when she breaks down to Sherberg. Immediately following her rage in the Vogue office, Lee confides in Audrey that she was abused as a child. Whether or not she would have revealed this to Audrey and this manner is questionable, but it serves to underline the reasoning behind her search for the truth and to expose the reality.

Lee carries an inner turmoil and self-destructive nature that begins to reveal itself towards the end of the film. As well as the trauma of the Holocaust, she is carrying a secret history of abuse. It becomes apparent that Lee’s experience of trauma drove her sense of injustice and the desire to depict the unvarnished truth as she saw it. She was able to identify with abused women.Her story is prescient today, when we live in a world that blurs truth and ignores the horrors happening in front of us. A world in which the rape of women and young girls is used in warfare. A cruel irony about her story is that the events which enabled Lee to develop her talents, were also that which led to her emotional decline.