Lee Miller: Winslet Comes Closest To Us
And the ruin of being a woman on the front-line.
The following contains spoilers.
Okay, I will say it: Kate Winslet is a dream.
Her portrayal of Model and World War II Journalist, Lee Miller is worthy of recognition. Her facial expressions and contortions showcase her talent as an actress, I find it brilliantly mind boggling and rightfully, she’s one of my favorite actresses.
Her portrayal of the internal struggle comes close. She directed it and was determined to tell the story of a woman through a woman’s eyes.
She even worked with Annie Leibovitz to recreate one of Miller’s most memorable photos: when she posed in Hitler’s bathtub, and had her lover and reporting partner at the time, Davey Scherman (Life Magazine) snap the shot.
Impulsive, a little side-eye dark humor, and before Miller knew Hitler was dead, she took a risk to show her defiance to a brutality inflicted on millions of people for nearly 12 years.
Miller wasn’t silent, she wasn’t satisfied on the sidelines, she wanted to be part of the effort. She showcased atrocity and called it out.
I wonder, though, would she see the repeat of history and call it out today too?
There was a point in the film where her friends explained Black and Queer communities were also subjected to Hitler’s hateful camps. So, I want to believe a wider spectrum of her understanding.
Winslet, in particular took part in a documentary, 11-Days in May with Palestinian director, and Gaza born, Mohammed Sawwaf as well as Michael Winterbottom, which depicted a humanitarian take on children, and other stories, during Hamas’ resistance in 2021.
Though she’s shied away from taking a stronger position on Israel, after being tagged by, Zionist sympathizers; a few months ago, it seems CBS cut out her reference to Gaza when she told Stephen Colbert, “Everyone has a right for their story to be remembered in conflict and that is so relevant to today.”
Winslet was clearly impacted by the character she played. And Lee Miller, like many of us, left the war, wrecked.
What she saw, changed her for life.
I appreciated, in the film, that there was a young girl among the photos who mirrored Lee’s own past pain.
Mmm, I have one of those too. From Gaza.
In real life, it’s not known if there was just one girl which struck her above rest, but Miller did take many photos of children for which I’m sure, marked her, as it always did me.
Their fear, their urgent attempt to connect, their hesitation, turn of a smile or a tear and underneath desperation all the same.
And…deep breath,
We also know Lee Miller was sexually abused as a girl, which the film reveals toward the end, adjusting the story to a family friend but it’s been thought her father was also her abuser.
The pains of the past always precede our pursuits. Miller was no different.
And Winslet’s performance is solid.
I know, I know. Hollywood makes women like me and the women I idolize and some of the brilliant ones I’ve worked alongside —something of an icon.
Ah, and yet
We are not the otherworldly fantasies set for a scripted scene in a patriarchal world, ruined by the wars of men.
When women cover war: the mother, the auntie and fierce life force goes with us. I respect many men out there, and still they are battle fighters with a different weapon.
The women in war journalism, and certainly in the past year and half, the women reporting in Gaza, have armed themselves with a pens and cameras, ready to lift and throw a moving car for every child, life, man or woman —they document.
There’s no turning it off. There’s no tuning out, once you’re in thick of it because you ARE it, like or not. You tell the story as you become the story.
Western Journalists Owe Gaza's Reporters Everything
It was a gut punch to my soul, and my stomach too. I FELT it. I swallowed hard. Another journalist fallen, murdered and this time the video captured their death: Ahmad Mansour was burned alive while filing a story in a make-shift media tent.
A woman’s elegant life-giving body becomes one of resistance to the tyranny on the front lines of war.
Mm, yes, well, the goddess Ishtar was of war and fertility. Perhaps, there is something to the idea of death to life and back again, after all.
But I digress,
We’re storytellers, trying to show you a way through. And I could tell you story after story, about the emptiness I witnessed in forgotten towns or about soldiers who showed me videos of them kicking suspects on the ground and the rounds or even the mischievous moments we discover of life —left on top of the rubble.
It’s not enough to fascinated by us, it’s imperative to HEAR us.
In Lee, Winslet showcased how angering and frustrating it was to have sent all her photos and stories back only for the story to be shut down in the U.K because it was thought the images were too much. This is not abnormal.
Every journalist I know goes through this because there’s always an agenda the higher ups want. It can be more devastating that the story itself. And it happens to more women I know than men (I’ve even had stories taken from me and given to a male colleague)
And with persistence, the U.S. edition of Vogue ran it, June 1945, 80 years ago this month.
Believe It, they said and the world did. Perhaps too late? Did we learn nothing?
Eight decades later, the tech has advanced so much, we can watch it all in real time. We can see the atrocities of a militant colony, repeating history while exploiting the tragedies Lee Miller covered.
And still, women are leading — the images, the reporting, the stories, the dead and life in rubble. It weighs on our bodies and our minds, but until the fucking bombs stop, we stay determined to twist the arms of the world to wake up.
The film, Lee ends with her ghost in the distance as her son tries to make sense of her, the pain she left him, the pain she witnessed, the pain she endured.
What if those of us, women on the frontlines avoid becoming Lee’s ghost because the wars of men are finally seen for what they are? What if the industry finally hears us? Appreciates us and stops being complicit.
I don’t want it to be a pipe dream. Not today.
Ash Gallagher is a Veteran War Journalist, Activist, Writer & Speaker. Connect here to get in touch and work w/ her.
Resources & Women You Should Follow:
- on Substack & on Instagram here
Jane Arraf, Palestinian-Canadian in Iraq
Jomana Karadsheh is a Jordanian reporter (Instagram)
Arwa Damon’s (Veteran CNNi) Inera is working to provide support in the ME region,
Book, Our Women on the Ground, an Anthology of Arabic speaking women reporting on their world.
Book, They Called Me Lioness, Ahed Tamimi & Dena Takruri
I was also so moved by Winslet's performance in "Lee". This essay also reminds me of Waad Al-Kateab's documentary about the Syrian resistance, called "For Sama." Have you seen it? Seeing this film was a turning point for me. When a woman makes a war documentary, it reshapes the world.