Lee movie (2023)
Yesterday I finally got to see Lee. Enjoyed would be the wrong word as her pictures of the campaign after the Normandy landings – and Dachau – were searing, but the film was impressive notably for the fine acting of Kate Winslet as Lee Miller.
The film covers one year (1945) and one aspect of Lee Miller’s extraordinary life as a war photographer.
This may be because Kate Winslet is just a few years older than Lee Miller was in 1945.
There are references to the abuse she suffered as child; to Man Ray, whose muse she was; to the Picasso set in the 1920s in Paris, but none to her marriage to an Egyptian businessman nor her success as a gourmet cook.
The film begins with an interview with her son Tony (when Lee was an old woman) and then flashes back to St Malo in 1945 and Mougins in 1938.
The main part of the film is Lee Miller as a war photographer for Vogue, insisting as a woman she can take photos and then going to Munich in order to photograph Dachau the day after it is liberated and then the famous picture of her in Hitler’s bath in his Munich flat.
The performance of Kate Winslet sustains the film. She is such a fine actress and her expressive face, especially her eyes, convey emotion so evocatively.
I was less happy with the casting of Swedish superstar Alexander Skogard as her husband – the surrealist painter Roland Penrose (surely any number of English actors could have performed this rôle?) – but it was good to see Marion Coillard as Solange d’Ayen – one of the Picasso set – and Joseph O’Connor as her son Tony. Andrea Risborough was superb as Vogue magazine editor Audrey Williams.
Kate Winslet portrayed Lee Miller as ballsy and hard drinking. Maybe she was like that, or Kate Winslet wanted her to be, but Lee Miller was remarkable for both overcoming adversity and her humility. It was only after a stray visit to the loft that her son came across her photographs which form the Lee Miller archive. Up till then he was totally unaware of her life as a war photographer.
There were stories of rows on set when an extra commented on Kate Winslet’s gut. She is a big woman but, as her rôle in The Reader (2008) attests, has no pretence nor ambition to be glamourous. Mainly she is dressed in fatigues in Lee. I hope I do not incur her wrath by saying how good she looks and what fine fruity and full breasts she has. She is also arguably our best current film actress.
