Old model of Vogue and muse of Man Ray, Lee Miller emancipated herself to become the subject of her life and a privileged witness to reality. By photographing numerous British women caught in the turmoil of war, but also by campaigning with his magazine Vogue to be sent to the front in France. actress Kate Winslet (The Regime) lends her patter and her audacity to this woman of character who knew how to shed light on human reality. The film sheds light on his fight and then his complicity with Audrey Withers, the editor-in-chief of Vogue (played by Andrea Riseborough) who stands up to him before supporting him as best he can. It also reports on her beautiful friendship with the photographer Davy Scherman (Andy Samberg) with whom she traveled across fallen Germany.
See reality squarely in the face
With Lee MillerEllen Kuras, renowned former cinematographer (Summer of Sam ; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) for Jim Jarmusch and Michel Gondry, makes a first fiction feature film, sensitive and endearing, revealing the flaws of an extraordinary personality behind the character’s escapades. The film does justice to this great reporter, the first female war photographer, of whom even those close to her were unaware of the precise role played during the conflict and, especially, after the Liberation. The feature film thus evokes the hundreds of unpublished photos, found hidden in his attic, by his son and daughter after his death.
The film, both epic and full of breath, transports us. His screenplay, adapted from the biography written by Antony Penrose, Lee Miller’s son, takes care of private details as much as the sense of the historical narrative.
As was already the case in the series Mare of EasttownKate Winslet is almost in every shot, without preparations or retouching: she rejoices in this role of a woman of character, assuming her faults like the weight of years, revealing the chaotic life and the feminist fight of the one who was determined to become the subject of her own story, the mistress of her destiny. The stakes are high: Lee Miller is in fact one of the rare photographers to bear witness to the horror of the camps in images. An abject and naked reality captured by an expert eye.
The narration and construction, seemingly classic, reserve some surprises. However, we regret that certain secondary characters are limited to a few scenes or appearances and therefore lack a little depth.
★★★ Lee Miller Sample photos OfEllen KurasScenarioJohn Collee, Liz Hannah and Marion Hume based on the biography “The Lives of Lee Miller” by Antony PenroseWith Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg Duration 1h56.
