Lee Miller

We were lucky to catch a preview of "Lee" tonight and what a film it is.

This biopic about Lee Miller is not only a powerful look at her incredible life but also a strong reminder of the horrors of war. As both a groundbreaking photographer and war correspondent, the film captures the devastating things she witnessed and the emotional toll they took on her.

The storytelling is gripping and moving, offering a deep look into resilience, art, and humanity in the face of such atrocities. I highly recommend checking it out when it comes out in Australia later this month - it's a film that will stay with you.

Greetings again from the darkness. Being courageous and heroic doesn't mean one must wear a cape and possess super powers. In fact, some of the most courageous folks use their words (spoken and written), their feet (for marching into battle), and as we learn here, even their eyes. Lee Miller is a famous photojournalist who used her words to get to the front lines of WWII, her feet to march with soldiers, and her eyes to decide where to focus her camera. The film is based on the biography, "The Lives of Lee Miller", by her son Antony Penrose. It's directed by renowned choreographer Ellen Kuras (her feature film directorial debut) and co-written by Liz Hannah, Marion Hume, John Collee, and Lem Dobbs.

Oscar winner Kate Winslet stars as Lee Miller, and her fierce and committed performance validates what a passion project this was for her, and just how hard she worked to bring the project to fruition. Lee Miller was a well-known fashion model, and we see her hanging out with her band of artistic friends in pre-war France. It's here where she first meets Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), and their initial intellectual bantering leads right to the bedroom. This after we hear Ms. Miller proclaim that she had ever only been good at drinking, having sex, and taking pictures. She speaks this line in 1977 while being interviewed (by Josh O'Connor, CHALLENGERS, 2024) about her life. It's this interview that provides some structure to the film, while confirming that drinking and smoking were hobbies until the end.

It's really Lee's photographs that guide us through each phase. She and Roland relocate to London during the war, and soon enough she's taking pictures under the guidance of British Vogue editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough). Continually having to stand up for herself after being rebuked for being a woman doing a man's job, Lee partners with (and ultimately befriends) Life magazine photographer David E Scherman (a surprisingly effective Andy Samberg). Their work documenting history becomes historic in itself. After hearing about the "missing", they were the first journalists to document Dachau concentration camp and the tragic prisoner trains.

Although British Vogue refused to publish the photographs as being too "disturbing", the U. S. magazine did publish, creating awareness of the atrocities. The segment that leads to the infamous photo of Lee bathing in Hitler's tubs is handled expertly. If there is a flaw in the film, it's that we never really get to know Lee's friends, so as she re-connects with Solange (Oscar winner Marion Cotillard), their meeting doesn't hit as hard as it should. Still, the cinematography from Pawel Edelman and the accomplished performance by Kate Winslet, do justice to the stunning (actual) photographs shown. There is a dramatized twist near the film's end that pays homage to Lee and her story. An early comment about Hitler is all too relevant today, and the battle scenes and photographs reinforce what courage Lee Miller exhibited.

Opens in theaters on September 27, 2024.

The story of former model turned photographer Elizabeth Miller, Lee, who recounts her times as War correspondent for Vogue during the second world war.

The two key elements, Lee's story, and the performance from Kate Winslet. Two things that make this a pretty good movie. It's not one I'd want to watch again in a hurry, as it is a little slow moving in parts, but I'm glad I saw it.

It is a fascinating story, one that is definitely worth some further reading on, Lee was definitely a pioneering figure, going into a world where women were excluded.

It's very well made and nicely directed, the production team did a fine job, it looks very good.

Winslet absolutely nails it, but at times it feels like a one woman show, some of the supporting characters are a little thin and half baked. Andrea Riseborough and Josh O'Connor are both rather good.

It's definitely worth seeing, even if just for Winslet's fine performance.

7/10.

It's a partial biopic of photojournalist Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) set in 1977 with flashbacks to 1938-1945. The film frames its story as an interview of Miller by a young man (Josh O'Connor) in 1977. Sequential flashbacks to Miller's life begin in 1938 and then follow.

Miller is a former American model who has taken up photography as an artistic form and hangs out with an artsy crowd in France, where she has lived for a time. Among her friends are Jean (Patrick Mille) and Solange d'Ayen. She meets Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), a Quaker artist and poet in Great Britain. He is also part of her artistic community and they begin a relationship. Miller moves to London, where she secures a job with the British Vogue magazine edited by Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough).

After World War II begins, Miller finds her way to the front lines as a war photojournalist for Vogue. "Lee" depicts some of her dramatic experiences, which resulted in memorable photographs from battles, the capture of Berlin, and the death camps, often together with a Life magazine photographer, David Scherman (Andy Samberg). Miller's personality throughout is hard-driven and sometimes impulsive as she copes through chain-smoking and alcohol consumption. At the film's end, we learn more about her motivation.

"Lee" is too one-dimensional, though Kate Winslet's strong performance reflects a complex and troubled personality. There are too many characters with shallow development, leaving Winslet on her own. The lack of context also detracts, as her past is vaguely referenced (she was married to an unmentioned man throughout the war), and we learn nothing of her life after the war (she did marry Roland). Thus, "Lee's" limitations derive from how an array of screenwriters made the adaptations from the 1985 biography.

Kate Winslet turns in quite an effective performance here as the eponymous photographer who originally arrived in London to be with husband Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) and to work for the formidable Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough) at "Vogue" magazine as a fashion photographer. With the rise of the Nazis seemingly unstoppable throughout continental Europe, Penrose spends more time on the war effort leaving her more and more determined to prove that she is every bit as capable as her male counterparts. Needless to say there's quite a bit of resistance to her participation in combat zones, but thanks to her own perseverance and an alliance with David Scherman (Andy Samberg) she is soon actively involved in wartime photography and by the end is visiting some of the most ghastly sites ever built seeing, at first hand, the truly stomach-churning atrocities left behind by a now defeated war machine that turned large-scale annihilation into an art form. Her story is being relayed from the comfort of her British home in the 1960s to a man whom we assume is just a journalist. Indeed his obvious nervousness and her antipathetic attitude towards him and his task seems to suggest she sees no value in her memories, but as we develop the threads of her life, we begin to sense that something more exists between her and this young man (Josh O'Connor) which quite neatly puts quite a lot of perspective on the choices made by a woman who probably did put career first. Through the characters of Solange (Marion Cotillard) and Nusch (Noémie Merlant) the film also attempts to put a little meat on the bones of the story of those who had to "co-operate" with their new overlords. Some willingly, some less-so and some, well they didn't live to tell. The production and battle scenarios aren't really so effective - maybe just bit too manicured, the script is a little dry and there's maybe just a bit too much of it, but Winslet shows here that she has plenty of capacity to take on a role that it would have been easy to shower with bravado, but instead she brings a more considered charisma to her portrayal of a woman whose bloody-minded courage provided for some of the most significant imagery of the Second World War. Imagery that even now makes your flesh crawl.