When it comes to the 2024 movie schedule, a sneakily great film set to come out this weekend is Lee. The project stars and is produced by Kate Winslet, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but when it comes to movies based on real people, it can be hard for one to join the status of biopics everyone should see. However, I absolutely recommend learning about the life of photojournalist Lee Miller through this new release. Plus, when I spoke to Winslet, she shared how playing the real-life role influenced her own experiences going forward.
I didn’t know much about Lee Miller before pressing play on the new movie, but as I told the actress, who is of course most famous for her role in Titanic, the photographer is somewhat of a hero to me now after learning about her through Lee. Winslet shared that she’s her hero, too, hence her work on the film taking nearly a decade to get right. When I asked her how seeing the world through the eyes of Miller affected her, here’s what she said:
I mean, I have to be honest, I have continued to use the Rolleiflex camera because I had to get so good at using it and recreating those images, as you say. And it was very important to me that that camera never ever felt like a prop. It had to really feel like something I was doing with my eyes closed. It had to feel like an extension of my arms, something that was both incredibly present, but also just disappeared.
The Rolleiflex camera is a medium format twin lens reflex (TLR) camera that was first produced in 1929… you know, before we all had cameras in our pockets. For the filming of Lee, Kate Winslet decided to pick up a Rolleiflex camera for real, and she made it her mission to recreate some of Lee Miller’s iconic images from the time she went off to Europe during World War II to document the war on the ground from her unique perspective. On that note, the actress also said this:
And, the beauty of the Rolleiflex camera is that because it sits below and you have to look down at the image in order to take it, it means that Lee was able to really lock eyes with the person she was photographing in order to truly capture their truth, what’s going on, not only in their face, but in their head, in their heart, emotionally.
As Winslet shared, it was important to her that while she was filming the project as Lee Miller, it felt like she was portraying the person, and that meant spending a lot of time with the vintage device. She has since kept the Rolleiflex camera close to her, and she continues to use it outside of the set of Lee. As she continued:
The ability to connect with people was really her superpower. And she did that as a photographer as well as in life. And so I was most inspired, I think, by her capacity to really see people and really connect in an empathetic and compassionate way. And the power of course, of photography and storytelling in documenting the truth, in being that visual voice really for the victims of conflict was something I was just, I was so profoundly inspired by and has really stayed with me.
Lee Miller began her career as a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going into photography as a surrealist artist alongside other icons in the field like Man Ray. However, Lee documents the photographer’s important role as one of the few women who had the opportunity (and gusto) to go on the front lines of World War II and get some powerful shots of what was happening. She placed a lot of focus on documenting the women of WWII along with bravely getting shots from the Battle of Saint-Malo and Nazi death camps.
She is also the star of one famous photograph that features her bathing in Adolf Hitler’s bathroom, which was taken coincidentally the same day he committed suicide. The photo was taken by her colleague David E. Scherman, who is played by Andy Samberg. Lee is the actor’s first dramatic role, which Winslet recently spoke about offering to Samberg.
Overall, this camera and story clearly left and impact on Kate Winslet, and it impacted me too.
You’ll be able to see Winslet in Lee when the film hits theaters on September 27.