We spoke with Kate Winslet about her film on Lee Miller

She became a world star withTitanic and received an Oscar for The Reader. At the Zurich Film Festival, Kate Winslet presents her film Lee about war photographer Lee Miller. Encounter.

Tobias Sedlmaier / ch media

This project was close to his heart and took almost ten years to see the light of day: Leethe film about photographer Lee Miller.

In the 1920s, this American was initially a model in high demand in the circle of surrealists. She later moved behind the camera, documenting the horrors of World War II, including the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. She was famous for her provocative acting, for example the time she was photographed taking a bath in Hitler’s apartment in 1945.

In addition to playing the main role in LeeKate Winslet also responsible for production and participated in essential casting decisions, like that of director Ellen Kuras. As an energetic war photographer, the Brit is stunning – the film is worth watching for that alone.

Lee Miller is a woman who does not accept that men do not let her go to the barracks or to the front and who makes her own way. The scenario, however, is not always up to the level of the acting, the dialogues are sometimes awkward. The overall plot, in which Lee Miller’s son, Antony Penrose (Josh O’Connor), discovers his mother’s work, is contrived and frankly unnecessary.

At the Zurich Film Festival, where she received the Golden Icon Awardthe 49-year-old actress takes exactly fifteen minutes for an interview. All questions that do not concern Lee were previously refused. Even during the interview, we notice that the actress dressed all in black, who usually passes for being quite relaxed, is taking this project seriously. This time she won’t be making jokes: Kate Winslet fights and burns for Lee Miller.

watson: Kate Winslet, during your public appearance as part of the “ZFF Masters,” you said that the decision to make the film “Lee” began with a dining table you purchased. It was around this that Lee Miller and his circle of friends gathered. Was this your first meeting with the photographer?
Kate Winslet: I knew Lee Miller’s name and his photos. But I knew nothing about his life, nor his relationship with his son Antony Penrose. What I quickly understood was that she was clearly a woman who had learned to assert herself with determination in male domains, to survive.

Lee Miller’s son, Antony Penrose, long hesitated to have his mother’s story adapted for the cinema. How was he convinced?
Yes, he was very reluctant. In fact, he wanted there to be a movie about his mother. But several attempts failed due to lack of funding or script. Antony felt that his mother was often misrepresented: as the problematic alcoholic. Or Man Ray’s ex-mistress. He wanted to free her from these labels and instead celebrate her powerful and courageous work.

Without Antony’s participation, I would never have been able to make this film.

Is this why it was included in the overall plot?
No, he was simply involved in every aspect of the film. Even in the decision to cover a period of ten years. He made all the archives available: photos, newspaper articles, diaries, letters… I really had access to everything. It was very generous of him. He shared more with me than with anyone before.

Why does the film focus exclusively on the war years and leave out Miller’s modeling career or her famous photos from Egypt?
We couldn’t put his whole life into a film. Otherwise, we would have shot a typical biopic – and that’s not what I wanted. Because Lee Miller has been through too much. And if you want to show everything, you can’t emphasize the most important moments. Lee was to illustrate the decade of her life of which she would, in my opinion, be most proud. And the war years ultimately also defined who she became for the rest of her life.

The war destroyed it…
She suffered from post-traumatic stress, like almost everyone who lived through World War II. This made it difficult for her to be a good mother. She and Antony had a very complicated relationship, he talked about it often, even in public. It was only after his death that he found the 60,000 negatives in the attic.

She set out to discover the world and documented it in an inimitable way. From there, he dedicated his life to his legacy.

Lee Miller’s photographs have historical significance today: the trains at Dachau, the photo in Hitler’s bathtub. What do you think gives them a particular aesthetic quality?
Lee’s unique talent was capturing in her photos the gaze of those she photographed. This is what sets her apart from men. She didn’t just look, she was part of every situation she photographed. She did not photograph the soldiers, the bloodshed, the battles.

Other photographers stood in front of the trains in Dachau and photographed the interior from the outside. Not Lee: she climbed inside, stood among the corpses, and photographed the faces of the soldiers looking inside.

How did you approach the Dachau concentration camp scenes during filming?
The most important thing for us was to completely follow Lee’s images and try to capture what she saw. We didn’t want to show miles of barracks and chimneys and all that stuff that we’ve already seen in many other brilliant Holocaust films. We stick with Lee’s point of view, and what we don’t see is just as important as what we do see.

Is Lee Miller a feminist icon for you?
For me, feminism is not an act of rebellion, but a state of mind. And Lee Miller was absolutely feminist, along with all her friends. The way she was already unconsciously reliving femininity back then, in order to maintain resilience, self-confidence and compassion at the same time, was an incredible source of inspiration for me! This has stuck with me, because this is how I live my life. Like all the women around me, this is how we raise our children.

“I’d rather take photos than be one myself” is a central phrase from the photographer in the film. Do you consider the film Lee as a statement against stereotypes towards women?
I’m not one to make statements. With this film, we just wanted to stay authentic and real to Lee and his experiences. I think it’s always dangerous to force a particular statement.

What the film at least shows and it is not the only one to show: the industry seems to have made considerable progress in recent years in the representation of complex female characters…
Yes, the changes have been massive over the past three decades. There are so many exciting roles!

I think now is one of the most exciting times for women in the film industry. This also applies to young people. Thirty years ago, there wasn’t much going on: studio productions, a handful of independent films, three TV channels and radio. At the time, we were still asked:

Today, there are all the streaming services and channels with all their programs, brilliant writing teams and a gigantic amount of productions: it’s great!

(Translated from German by Anne Castella)