Tracker Pixel for Entry

​Kuras and Winslet imagine the life of World War II photographer Miller in “Lee”

Cinema | November 4th, 2024

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The brilliant cinematographer Ellen Kuras makes her narrative feature directorial debut with the long-gestating biopic “Lee.” Reuniting with Kate Winslet, with whom she worked on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Kuras explores the career highlights of model turned World War II photographer Lee Miller, whose images of Buchenwald and Dachau are among the most immediate and gripping concentration camp photos of the historic record. Producer and star Winslet, who labored for the better part of a decade to bring Miller’s story to the screen, works from a screenplay by Liz HannahJohn Collee, and Marion Hume. Their script, adapted from the 1985 book “The Lives of Lee Miller” by Miller’s son Antony Penrose, provides the foundation for a handsomely mounted but unspectacular, underwhelming experience.

Nobody who has admired the career of Winslet will argue that she is anything less than dynamite as the title subject. The consistently potent characterizations of the Academy Award-winner span many genres, and she has been riveting and at home in period costume and contemporary settings alike. In “Lee,” Winslet outshines her capable castmates. The thin sketches of key Miller friends, lovers, and acquaintances are frustratingly underwritten. Of the ensemble members, Andy Samberg’s David Scherman is given the most to do, but the particulars of Miller’s romantic partnership with modern artist and poet Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) come and go as a matter of convenience.

Fellow Oscar recipient Marion Cotillard, as one-time French “Vogue” editor Solange D’Ayen, is woefully underutilized; with the exception of a short scene dramatizing the horrific personal toll of war’s destruction, she is relegated to a curious status assigned to several other top-notch actors: Noémie Merlant (as Nusch Éluard) and Andrea Riseborough (as Dame Audrey Withers) are two additional people significant to Miller. Katie Walsh has observed that Miller, “seeks out the women in war” in part “ … because she’s often shut out of male spaces … “ And yet, Kuras often elects to underplay the discrimination faced by Miller on the basis of her sex.

Along with the revolving door approach to the supporting cast, “Lee” also struggles to find the breathing room for us to contemplate Miller’s intense understanding of and relationship to the camera. Moving from the front of the lens to behind the viewfinder carries with it any number of complexities (as a teenager, Miller modeled in the nude for her father), but Kuras highlights relentless drive and ambition in favor of curiosity about the photographer’s approach to image manipulation and staging in the liminal space between journalistic documentation and the making of art.

The exception to that question resides in a set-piece recreating one of the best known images of Miller (from several frames composed and staged in collaboration with Scherman): a portrait of the former fashionista bathing in Hitler’s Munich apartment tub on the very day of his suicide, her dirty combat boots muddy on the bath mat. Kuras implies that the scene was hastily stitched together as Miller and Scherman furtively arranged key objects, including a portrait of Hitler, around the tiles. The resulting message, that the German leader’s private lavatory now belonged to a woman and a Jew, suggests that a picture is worth a thousand biopics.     

Recently in:

By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.com Ten North Dakota communities will participate in the nationwide No Kings Day of Peaceful Action on October 18. The grassroots movement is a nonviolent protest against President Trump’s…

By Kooper Shagenakoopershagena@gmail.com One night, Jane Linde Capistran, associate conductor of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, sat and drank wine with her friends: “Jennifer Tackling, the associate concertmaster, and…

Saturday, October 25, 6:30–8:30 p.m.Rourke Art Gallery + Museum, 521 Main Avenue, Moorhead Celebrate eight years of creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky regional art in a variety of media as the Rourke Art Gallery is transformed…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com At the end of September, downtown Fargo said goodbye to another old friend; the Spirit Room closed its doors, marking the end of an era. The Spirit Room room has been a fixture downtown for the…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comWill we be banging or whimpering at the end of the American empire?T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” accurately portrays the end of most empires in his first lines: “We are the hollow men/…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gion and Nichole Hensenrickgion@gmail.com The wait is finally over. Those who have visited Nichole’s Fine Pastry & Cafe lately know about the recent major additions and renovations that have taken place over the past…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Dream-factory documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe connects with a Hollywood legend in “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” the latest in a series of features exploring the filmmaker’s many…

By HPR staffsubmit@hpr1.com Mark the first weekend of October on your calendar. It’s the weekend of the Studio Crawl, which takes us all on a wonderful, metro-wide tour of our talented (and often wacky) arts community. On October…

Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com When we are sick, all we want is a cure. You go to the doctor, they give you a pill, you take it for a bit, then you are cured. It happens. But unfortunately, it is not always the case. …

By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…

By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson@rocketmail.comMoral accountability and the crisis of leadership  As a recovering person living one day at a time for the last 35 years, I have learned not to judge others because I have not walked in…