By Lizzy Holden
An eerie ring, the steady thumping of a heart and the stutter of gunfire marks the opening of Ellen Kuras’ new biopic LEE. For a moment the fractured sounds of battle suspend us in time, the audience set at a distance from the chaos as we focus in on a figure seeking cover from the explosions; a camera clasped between white knuckled hands.
The owner of this camera is Lee Miller.
Model, surrealist, muse, photographer, WWII correspondent, and culinary genius, Miller was a woman who walked between lifetimes and refashioned herself repeatedly to become perhaps one of the most complicated figures of the twentieth century. Her life was a tapestry of variety right up until her passing in 1977, and yet, many of her accomplishments went unrecognised until after her death.
Born in 1907, Miller’s childhood was characterised by difficulty. She was expelled from multiple schools; suffered sexual abuse from a family friend; and was photographed nude by her father, an amateur artist. While this exposure to photography through her father would teach her the technical minutia of the art form, there is no doubt these experiences stuck with Miller. Indeed, she is now famous for saying that she “would rather take a photo than be one.”
Despite this, on the 1927 cover of British Vogue, the reader is held prisoner by the eyes of an illustrated Miller. Dashes of light summon the viewer to New York, where the emerging glass landscape of the urban world promises opportunities for wealth, social grandeur, and the latest fashions. Clad in a vibrant blue cloche and adorned in pearls, Miller stands at the centre as the incarnation of modernity and 20’s femininity. While literally crafted by another’s hands, Miller’s modelling experiences would aid her as she took up the artist’s brush and reflected for herself on the world and womens’ position within it.
WWII was the morbid catalyst for this artistic reflection, taking the surrealist tendencies of her earlier work and transposing them into striking photos exploring life on the home front. For while the threads of conflict had been weaving themselves for years leading up to 1939, it wasn’t until war was officially declared that the full tapestry of disruption came into view. As such, the bodily and spatial displacement associated with surrealism through composition and juxtaposition was the perfect vehicle for Miller to capture the events unfolding. Her work acts as a journal where fact and emotion seamlessly run alongside each other.
This record was particularly related to the activities of women. Whether as farmers, secretaries, ATS officers or nurses, women were the vital cogs turning the war effort. Miller placed the lives of ordinary people at the centre of her work as she photographed candid moments in their lives, the artificiality of a set lost as the women instead posed as they pleased or not at all. For women, so often the fantasised muses of art, the importance of having photos taken of them in this way cannot be understated. Miller treats them not as passive objects but as voices of interest whose lives deserve to be remembered.
Cast in the watery light of morning, the piece, US Army Nurse’s Billet, is a prime example of this. Ghostlike, laundry and a nurse’s jacket hang next to each other, waiting for their lost owner to return. In the days following my viewing, I found myself returning, in awe of the fragile intimacy of this stolen moment. The soft lines of the fabric alongside the rigidity of the windows and the darkness of the curtains perfectly speak to the contrast of the domestic and the industrial for women. Indeed, the underwear becomes symbolic of the private world, while the jacket is the external cover for the public. Found in the space between is the imprint of this unknown woman, her dual existence immortalised.
This depiction of seemingly unremarkable objects or settings that carry greater symbolism is a common thread across Miller’s work. Take the geometric lines of a harshly clean bathroom ushering the viewer into what is now Miller’s most notorious piece. Serenity relaxes the lines of Miller’s face as she watches over her discarded clothes, the photo every bit the mundane relaxation of a bath. Yet in the shadows of the room, the photo of a single figure shifts the entire meaning of the piece.
This is Hitler’s bathroom.
In it, Miller washes off the dirt of Dachau. Her boots carry ghosts into the room, who rub their mired, broken feet into his bath mat.
Taken on the day of Hitler’s death, this remains a controversial photo, yet its significance cannot be denied. Especially alongside a photo of Sherman, the Jewish collaborator of Miller who also used the bath, Hitler’s shower head raised above his anguished face.
Yet, despite her dedication to capturing the truth, and the trauma she suffered to do so, much of Miller’s work went unpublished. Her record of the concentration camps; of the destruction of Europe; of the lives broken…all of it went untold.
This censorship is discussed beautifully by Kuras when Miller (Kate Winslet) storms into Vogue’s offices and starts destroying the negatives she tirelessly sent over. In this heartbreaking scene, we see Miller on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Winslet’s performance is flawless as she hyperventilates: “Who cares? Nobody saw them. You didn’t print them.” She holds up the image of a girl photographed in Dachau, pleadingly asking “Raped and beaten, how does she move on?”
This question is posed to Audrey Withers (editor of Vogue played by Andrea Riseborough), yet the piercing stare of the little girl challenges the audience: how do victims of war move on if their suffering goes unrecognised?
For the governments at the time, Miller’s photos were too disturbing for a population who had already suffered through the Blitz and the loss of too many families. Their decision to omit the full scope of Nazi occupation, not only denies the public access to truth but also prevents the processing of trauma for victims.
The duty of the bystander to conflict is a complex one; yet war in the Ukraine and Middle East places us in a position where we must rise to it. Our world is a tragic melody of brokenness and the life of Miller, and the biopic that recounts it, challenges us to recognise, in brutal clarity, the reality of global politics.
Her experiences in the war made and unmade Miller. Her work from the period – totalling over 2000 photos, contact sheets and negatives – is nothing short of miraculous in its beautiful artistry and unspeakable poignance.
There is more to her life than I would ever be able to do justice to in this one article. Her experiences in war – while significant – are only one aspect of a woman whose life included travelling around Egypt; a battle with addiction; studying with Man Ray; befriending Picasso; and mothering a child. She is an inspiration, and one I have only grown fonder of even as I squabble with her complicated biography in writing this piece. For the kaleidoscope of Miller is truly never ending, one layer leading to the reveal of another, until all that is left is awe.