Ben O’Shea: New Movie ‘Lee’ Starring Kate Winslet.

Ben O’Shea stops by to tell us all about Kate Winslet’s new film ‘Lee’, a film based on a true story about war photographer Lee Miller.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great to flick with ben o'she good morning, guys. Do
you love a true story? I love a true story.
You can't write better than true stories? Yeah, well, especially
this story. It's so wild. Do you would think this
has come from the mind of a Hollywood screenwriter? The
story of Lee Miller, who a lot of people probably

(00:21):
wouldn't be aware of, and certainly during her own lifetime,
a lot of people didn't know who she was. She
kind of became renowned and getting the respects she deserved
years after she'd died. So she was a war correspondent,
but many years before that, in the late nineteen twenties,
she was one of the most in demand models in
New York City. She was on the cover of American Vogue,

(00:43):
she was doing advertisements in the newspapers. She was, you know,
the Claudius Shiffer, the Cindy Crawfords in the late nineteen twenties.
But she she always I guess, was more attracted to
being behind the camera, being an artist. So as she
was getting a little bit older and the modeling jobs dried up,
she moved to Paris and fell in with a group

(01:05):
of I guess some of the greatest artists on the
planet at the time, people you may have heard of,
like Pablo Picasso was one of her mates. A Jean Cocteaux,
the great kind of French poet and filmmaker and playwright
and all of these kinds of people, right, and the
Dutchess Solage, who was the editor of French Vogue at
the time. So she moved in pretty fancies artisticle circle,

(01:29):
especially in those times. This was in the nineteen thirties
and the specter of war with Germany was starting to
grow in Europe. The Nazi movement was happening, and all
of these artists, especially in France, were looking at this
and going, oh gosh, this is a bit of a
concern here. She then marries an Englishman who's an artist

(01:51):
and a curator and an art gallery. She moves to
London just as the war starts, the Blitz is happening.
She's working for British Vogue, but she wants to do
something like she's you know, I can't do my bit,
but in British societies and so many roles that women
could do time, I want to donsis factory. Yeah exactly.
But she remembers saying in a minute. I'm an American citizen.

(02:11):
I don't have to do what I'm told by the
British government. So uses her American passport to convince people
to let her go to the front lines in France,
where she becomes a war correspondent, like and then once
she gets there, she has to convince the American army commanders.
You know, I know no women are allowed anywhere near
the front lines. I want to go there with my camera.

(02:32):
It was just it's hard to even explain how unheard
of that was at the time. And so then she
has done things like she's taken photos of what it
was like on the front line for the troops, taking
photos in the in the medical tense of what the
impacts of war. She captured the first ever image of
napalm being used on human population. She was one of

(02:56):
the first into the concentration camps after the fall of
hit and captured really the world's first images of the
horrors of some of those concentration camps. She talked her
way into Hitler's apartment at the end of the war,
just you know, like literally within hours of Hitler and
aver Braun killing themselves, and had stripped off hopped into

(03:19):
Hitler's bath and posed for a photo. So the stuff
that she has done is incredible. She's like all the
while kind of you know, sort of fiercely independent, giving
the middle finger to the patriarchy, all this kind of stuff.
And then she gets back to gets back to the
UK and gives all these photos to British Vogue and
they're like, well, you know what, the war has ended
and people kind of moved on, so we're not going

(03:40):
to publish these, you're kidding and so then and then
this is and then and then so she's refusing to
take no for an answer. The photos get sent to
American Vogue, where of course they remember her as a model.
These photos are incredible, they get published, but even still
they kind of just you know, after the end of
that dish, there's no Internet, the photos are forgotten about it.

(04:03):
And it's not until many years later, maybe twenty years later,
when her adult son finds a box of her old
images in the attic that is like, holy cow, this
is what my mum. Didn't even realize that his mum
did it, and then has written this book based on
the life of his mum. He's done on his research,
and that's what the movie is based on. And now
Lee Miller is considered one of the greatest war correspondents

(04:26):
ever just then amazing, amazing legacy, And so who else
would you think would be perfect to play a character
like that. One of the greatest actresses Kate wins oschool winner,
and no one is better at bringing these real life
characters to life, and she is so perfect for this role.
She's got that sort of fierce spirit, also vulnerable because

(04:49):
there's some stuff that happens in Lee Miller's childhood and
background that kind of informs who she is as an adult.
And so Kate Winslet, as you would expect, is phenomenal,
absolutely the best thing about this Other aspects of the
film maybe not so amazing, but purely because Kate Winslet
is so good. Everybody else kind of looks like trash,
including the great Alexander Scarsguard who plays her husband. Why

(05:11):
they cast him a Scandinavian bloke as an englishman, He's
still got a Scandinavian accent, doesn't sound like an English
gentleman at all. And then you've got Andy Samberg, who
people will know from Brooklyn ninety nine, who plays a
fellow war correspondent who becomes besties with Lee Miller. Look,
he's not a dramatic actor. He's funny. He's very funny,

(05:33):
and when he's telling jokeside film, he's amazing. But and
you can get away with that in some films when
you're acting in scenes heavy scenes of the Holocaust opposite
Kate Winslet, doesn't work. When you're there with the creed,
does not work at all. So that's a bit unfortunate.
So some of the casting decisions are not amazing. The
only actor who really stacks up next to Kate Winslet

(05:53):
is Marian Kotier, the French actress who plays Solange Duchess. Yes,
but you'd watch this for Kate Winslet's performance, and also
for the true story, which is incredible, and the pictures,
the pictures at the end of the film during the
closing credits just okay, crazy, what a groundbreaker? Oh yeah, incredible.
Well I don't even know what to say other than
just what are you giving it? Because it's three three stars.

(06:17):
Some of those some of those other performances let it
down a bit. But you know, Kate Winslet, if you
were just judging stars on Kate would be probably more
than three then thanks guys,