Not the bionic man Lee Majors, Not presidential assassin enthusiast Lee Harvey Oswald but Lee Miller the influential and ahead of her time female war correspondent and the subject of the self titled film starring Kate Winslet in the role. It’s been a passion project of the actress for some years and has been in development since it was announced in 2015 having gone through numerous writers since.
Starting life as a model Miller describes her life as one of, ‘drinking, sex and taking pictures’ an apt description of our own Editor but without the sex and taking pictures (‘You’re fired!’ – Ed). But Miller was far more than that as brilliantly played by Winslet she is a steely, determined feminist and accomplished photographer who through her own drive began working for British Vogue where a waspish Cecil Beaton also worked and battled with the magazine’s Editor Audrey Withers.
But with the outbreak of WWII Miller comes round to the idea that her work could be far more than just a pretty image and despite being blocked by the UK from entering into war zones the US permits her and what she captures on her camera becomes increasingly horrifying taking its toll on her own psyche at the horrors of war and most disturbingly of all following the trail as to what was happening to thousands of people apparently just disappearing. What she finds and the photographs she takes are as upsetting and disturbing today as they were back then.
Miller’s journey into the atrocities of war zones sees her accompanied by US war photographer David Scherman played by Andy Samberg, something of a revelation in the role when his previous on screen performances have been in broad comedy. The film is played as a series of flashbacks between 1977 where she talks to Anthony Penrose (Josh O’Connor) and her WWII years and the film very much plays as a standard biopic that could have been served equally well as a documentary. But it’s the draw of Winslet’s performance that really makes the film and there is excellent support as ever from Andrea Riseborough, an actress who disappears into roles and whose back catalogue is brilliantly varied taking in horror, musicals as well as drama. There’s able support too from Alexander Skarsgard as her British husband and Marion Cotillard as a French friend.
Lee Miller was a person that is frequently referenced in ‘Civil War’ as a not dissimilar role model for Kirsten Dunst’s photographer character. Miller’s life and career was an extraordinary and trailblazing one and though her life is an inspirational one, as a film Lee is informative if not a little formulaic.
related feature : Andrea Riseborough chats to us about Matilda the Musical and her outrageous costumes
related feature : ‘Civil War’ – REVIEW
Here’s the Lee trailer…..
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