S Poddar
Kate Winslet insisted on one thing when developing her new film-the one in which she plays the fearless photojournalist Lee Miller: it had to have a woman at the helm. Winslet, starring and coproducing Lee, was very clear that to tell the story of one of history’s most dynamic female characters required a woman’s perspective. The film, which opens this week, portrays Miller as “a truth-seeker and a truth-teller,” mainly through her work documenting war-time pivotal moments of World War II, including the Battle of Saint-Malo, field hospitals in Normandy, and the harrowing scenes from the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
Production notes cite Winslet as saying that there could be no question of the film needing a woman’s touch behind the camera. That it was quite necessary in telling the story of Miller, a woman whose life met with extraordinary challenges, both on a personal and professional basis, especially within a male-dominated world.
Lee Miller died in 1977, known originally as a Vogue model and surrealist muse to Man Ray. During World War II, she became one of the first war correspondents and photographers, never one to let social expectations get in the way of reporting from the front line. “I’d rather take a picture than be one,” she famously said.
With the film, Winslet tries to break down those preconceived ideas of what Miller should be, given that most remember her much more for her modeling career than for her groundbreaking work as a war journalist. She wants to show the world that Miller is more than just a subject of male artists; she was an individual who took charge of her own story.
It forced the hands of a cinematographer, Ellen Kuras, who had earlier worked with Winslet on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A Little Chaos. Though an accomplished cinematographer, Lee is the first feature film directed by Kuras. She had earlier co-directed the Emmy-winning documentary The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), a story about refugees.
Winslet-who took home an Oscar for her role in The Reader in 2009-had been trying to get the film off the ground for more than eight years. According to Kuras, who spoke to The Observer, a number of investors had passed on the project, labeling it “a woman’s story” and thus unimportant. It was this response that brought up the difficulty of having a film made about Miller, especially given how so many other earlier attempts framed her through a male lens and treated her more as a “damaged woman” rather than as a pioneering war correspondent.
As Kuras said, this film approaches Miller’s story differently: “The tendency is to see women through men. We’re looking at her as somebody who went behind the camera … to take control of the image … create her own story.” Kuras added that Miller – like many war returnees probably suffered from PTSD, and was not able to talk much about what happened to her. She only hopes, however, that the film portrays Miller as a woman whose legacy should be characterized by her work and resilience, not just by the men she was associated with throughout her life.
Winslet too echoed, “Miller is an exciting role model.” Miller was a war correspondent; She battled the conventions of her time to make a career and followed her instincts on the right path in search of truth and justice. Kuras added, “The film is about a woman who stepped into the heart of darkness to show reality to the world.”.
Not wishing to sexualize or objectify Miller-very much in line with her discomfort at being objectified as a model-Kuras was very aware of not making the film one that sexualized or objectified her. It is an important sensitivity, crucial in scenes that could easily have been viewed through a voyeuristic lens, such as Miller’s famous self-portrait in Hitler’s bathtub, taken in his Munich apartment with the mud of Dachau still on her boots.
The film leans heavily on The Lives of Lee Miller, a book written by Antony Penrose, Miller’s only child with surrealist artist Roland Penrose. Kuras praised Antony Penrose for his cooperation in making the film, giving them access to Miller’s personal archive. She talked about how intrinsic it was to go through her contact sheets, which helped her understand her point of view while traveling and documenting the war.
Winslet spent much time at Farley Farm in Sussex, where Miller lived post-war, steeping herself in Miller’s world as part of her preparation. Winslet herself spoke about being most deeply influenced by the reading of his letters.
It’s just way too many had tried to tell this story about my mother, and it just never came together,” Penrose said to Winslet. “They just didn’t quite get her,” he said. But Winslet, along with Kuras, felt strongly about telling a proper Miller story-an onscreen evocation of a woman whose life and work should be remembered in its fullness.
