All language subtitles for Lee Miller. A Life on the Front Line (Teresa Griffiths-BBC, 2020)_track3_eng

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She did so much with an
extraordinary amount of courage.

RAPID GUNFIRE

It's very hard, I think, for women
today to understand the degree

of the risks that she took.

You see that in Lee Miller's eyes.

There is a flame there
that is ignited

when you see those photographs.

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She went for it, whatever it was.

She didn't let any of the

conventions of being a woman
hold her back.

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I hope no-ne will ever forget the
subject matter for those pictures.

I won't.

DOOR CREAKS

When I was growing up, I knew
virtually nothing of my

mum's past achievements.

It was a book that she had closed.

People were trying to celebrate her,
but she didn't want it.

She wanted to move on
and she wanted to forget.

She packed her life into boxes -

Daz and Heinz Baked Beans -

cardboard boxes, and she put
them in the attic.

Well, my late wife Suzanna found
these photographs in the attic

of this old house.

My first reaction was disbelief.

I think Lee was very much
burying the past.

And I think it was because
she...she wasn't terribly happy.

She cut a somewhat lonely figure.

I had known my mum
as a useless drunk,

a hysterical kind of person who...

Even catching a train in Lewis was a
major episode for her.

I could not believe that
she was the same person

that had created this material.

Now I felt that this was a story
that needed to be told.

CAR HORNS BEEP

I feel with Lee that she knew
she was going to be a star.

If you grow up in the suburbs...

I mean, Poughkeepsie's a train ride
from New York.

..all you want is the big city.

So, Lee goes to New York.

She has youth, she has beauty.

She's confident.

Men take her out for dinner,
and then...

CAR HORN BEEPS, TYRES SCREECH

The story is that Lee Miller stepped

out in front of an automobile.

And as the driver swerved to a halt,

the most powerful man in fashion

managed to scoop her up.

And that man was Conde Nast, who is

the founder of American Vogue.

And what is a fact is, within
a very short time of meeting

Conde Nast - who had a bit
of a casting couch, apparently -

but very soon after meeting him,
she was on the cover of Vogue.

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When I look at the images
of Lee Miller, I see a woman

who is entirely comfortable
in her skin, entirely comfortable

with who she is as a person,
as a woman.

And how thoroughly modern she must
have been then, beyond modern,

how, probably, ground-breaking
she was.

I knew very little
of her as a model.

It's not something that she ever
talked about at all.

Well, she never talked about
anything to do with this.

She never showed me the beautiful
pictures in Vogue

of her looking absolutely fabulous.

Part of the reason that Lee Miller
was such a great model

is she'd been modelling
from the day she was born.

Lee's father photographed
her all the time.

Theodore Miller was a serious
amateur photographer, quite adept

at the techniques of the time,
including the stereoscopic camera.

Images would merge with each other

to give you an illusion of depth.

Theodore would probably have
considered himself an artist,

and he took pictures of his
daughter that, to our eyes,

are very dubious.

DOOR CREAKS

I didn't know about these pictures
until after Lee died,

and it was part
of the stash that we found.

I was quite shocked, actually,
because I thought

that they were an invasion
of the normal

father-daughter relationship.

And, of course, by that time I'd got
my own daughters and I could no

more imagine me taking these
kind of pictures.

If you step back and don't think

that those pictures of a father,

of a daughter, they're actually

quite good for an amateur
photographer.

But the minute you know
that that's her dad,

then you just can't get over it.

It's a transgression of
a relationship.

Theodore's photographs of Lee,

I see as a collaboration.

I see her as a participant.

I see... And a life experience
so similar to my own.

When Mom was working on a
photograph, it was a family affair.

I grew up in a family where
we were very comfortable with nudity

and being nude around each other.

And it's very sad that people

cannot conceive of Lee engaging
in nudity around her father

without it becoming sexualised.

I think women and children in art,

the assumption is one of
exploitation, and that is not

what I see at all with her
as a child subject

or as an adult subject.

He did bring her up as his favourite
model, and this continued

into her teens and early 20s,

apparently without any distress
or qualms or worries on her part,

as far as we can tell.

Having already learned quite a bit
about photography at home,

she could talk photography
with the great photographers

like Steichen, with whom she worked.

She was probably forming the idea
that she'd like to take

the photographs herself.

And I think it was Steichen
who said, "Well, if you want to

"study with one of the greats,
you should go to Paris

"and study with Man Ray."

SHIP HORN BLARES

JAZZ MUSIC

Paris in the late '20s
was the centre of the world.

Paris is Paris, and Paris
is jazz, and Lee is jazz.

Being in Paris in the '30s, for a
woman like Lee, was literally

about ripping your corset off
because, you know, it's when fashion

changes, it's when the world
changes.

It's...it's a moment of...just
huge possibility.

MUSIC CONTINUES

You know, Lee, first I think we'd
better clear up just how you

happened to be a photographer in the
first place.

I thought the best way was to start
out studying with one

of the great masters in the field,
Man Ray.

He was in Paris at that time,
so I went to him and said,

"Hello, I'm your new student and
apprentice."

He said, "Oh, no, you're not. I
don't have students or apprentices."

I said, "You do now."

At first she was his student.

She was also his studio assistant.

But they also became lovers
early on.

Why did Lee Miller - golden,
beautiful, fashionable...

..fall for a man who was basically

half her height, not very golden?

Because she had much to learn

and he was a great photographer.

For Man Ray, I think it was
the incarnation of the most

improbable relationship
that he could have imagined.

This incredibly beautiful,
white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant

from New York dropping into his

lap and his life in this way.

There's still so much that Man Ray

did with Lee Miller
that was ground-breaking.

I don't think anyone had ever seen
photography as that sort of daring.

This level of artistic genius
between the pair of them,

it resonates in photography today.

She understands what Man Ray
is asking of her.

From my personal experience,

there is this sense of just knowing

what the photographer wants.

And manipulating herself

into these sort of shapes

and positions, but also

being attuned to sort of look

into the camera and convey life...

It is an alchemy of two people.

The photographer, the muse.

Typically, historically, the artist
has then taken the photographs,

produced amazing work and walked
away saying, "Look at this amazing

"work that I made," as opposed
to saying, "Look at this gift

"I've been given and the

"extraordinary magic of this
collaboration."

And he did not negate her in
retrospect,

which I think, again,
speaks volumes about her -

the extent of the respect
that he had for her.

Lee and Man fit perfectly into the

world of the Surrealists
in the 1930s.

That movement seemed very...
not only very unconventional,

but very freeing for the women
as well.

To be treated not only as muses,
but as muses who were themselves

artists and could participate.

Lee's relationship with Man Ray
changed her life in the sense

that it really made her into
a Surrealist photographer.

She could already do the fashion
and stuff like that.

But I think Man Ray really
encouraged that wonderful element

in her work, which is the surreal.

I do think, with Lee Miller,
she is much more lauded as an artist

and a creator as well as a muse.

I see a woman who is in charge,
and she's the one calling the shots.

And I just love that!

People forget that she actually
had her own studio in Paris

and she was working on doing
her own commissions.

And working with Hoyningen-Huene,

who is the boss of
Paris Vogue Studios.

METRONOME TICKS

He did everything he could, almost,
to further her photographic career.

However, he also wanted
to control her.

I think we could see it as
the relationship of a much younger

woman with a much older man,
that initially the power lies

with the man and then there's the
shift and it lies with the woman.

And the ending, really, with Man Ray
is probably...

..she got what she wanted.

And he struggled to try
and possess and control

this totally uncontrollable woman.

And that's what broke them apart
in the end, after three years.

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

Lee Miller, a bride!

"Poughkeepsie, New York,
September 4th.

"Mr and Mrs Theodore H Miller

"of this city today announced the
marriage of their daughter,

"Lee Miller, to Aziz Eloui Bey
of Cairo, Egypt."

Why did Lee Miller marry an Egyptian
businessman - that she'd met,

I believe, skiing -
and move to Cairo?

He is extremely wealthy,

but he also offers her a kind of
magic carpet

to the Arabian Nights,
in her mind.

So they get married very quickly
in City Hall and she tells

her parents something along the

lines of, "Oh, you know that guy
Aziz? Well, I just married him."

She found in Cairo a very luxurious

establishment with servants

and cooks and all sorts of people
to look after her.

And for a time she found

a great change of scene
which interested her.

For several years, she was quite
happily immersed in her new life.

But, in time, this too became
insufficient for her.

Lee realised it was full of people

who were pickled with drink

and dried in the sun,
and the women had nothing to do.

And I think she got bored
extremely quickly.

As an antidote to the boredom
of life, she found her Rolleiflex

and started taking pictures again.

And this was one of the most

exciting photographic periods
of her career.

So she began going on expeditions
into the desert

to take very unusual and, to my
mind, highly successful photographs

that have almost
a more spiritual dimension.

Certainly the picture she made
through the torn fly screen,

Portrait Of Space, that shows that

kind of conjunction of all of the
surreal qualities,

all of her internal feelings in
that one shot, in that one place.

It seems almost meditative to me.

She had a strong desire
to escape into something else

and another place.

And it was in Egypt
that she could explore that.

When she was married to Aziz
and living in Egypt, she even writes

about it in her letters that
she feels like she needs to be

a proper wife, and she knows what
the expectations are,

but she just finds it too hard.

And...and it just doesn't work!

Aziz knew that Lee was unhappy

in Cairo and pining for Paris,

so he bought her an airline ticket.

And she flew to Paris,
and on the night she arrived

she heard that there was this
big party on.

JAZZ MUSIC, LAUGHTER

And it was a fancy dress party,

and all of her Surrealist friends
were there.

It must've been the most
wonderful reunion.

And that's where she met my dad,
Roland Penrose.

I think Aziz shot himself
in the foot, really, didn't he?

Cos he was so nice and bought her a

ticket to go to Paris
to see her friends,

and then the same night
she meets my grandad.

It's a bit like, "Damn!"

If you'd known, would you have
bought the ticket, Aziz?

Lee is now, I think it'd be fair
to say, in lust with Roland Penrose,

and he feels exactly the same.

WAVES GENTLY BREAK

There is one extraordinary

photograph which kind of sums up

1937 in Lee's life.

They are on this holiday with

a group of people to the
South of France.

You see a lot of guys
with their tops on...

..and women with their tops off
in the picnic picture,

which, if you ever want anything

to encompass the Surrealists,
is a great one.

Also, you know,
if you zoom close into Roland,

you can see an Englishman who's

desperately trying to break free

from his Victorian upbringing,

as he's looking very kind of,

"Yes, I'm studying liberation here."

SHE CHUCKLES

She was the sort of person that he
wanted to be, in some respects.

The dynamic of the Surrealists

is a dynamic of free love, but free
love which tends to favour men

having the free love that they want

and not so much the women.

Then you put Lee Miller
into that mix...

..and Lee is definitely someone
who always thinks,

"Well, I don't see why men should be
able to do something that I can't."

For her to own the power
of her sexuality,

to harness it and then to enjoy it
for herself...

I mean, that's crazy.

I'm so proud of all the sex
she had, right?

Like, way to go!

It makes me so happy to know that
there's a blip in history

where at least one woman...

..had a good time.

It's one of those moments
where everyone

in that photograph is signalling,

"I couldn't be anywhere else
than here right now."

It's a moment of extraordinary
happiness and joy,

but most of all freedom.

And when we look at it now,
of course, it's very poignant,

because what they know -
and they do know -

is that war is coming.

The summer of 1937 was a wonderful
affair with my grandad,

but she did go back,
she went back to Egypt.

"Darling Lee, this is hell. Another
week on and still no news of you.

"Three weeks now since your last
letter arrived.

"I get more and more depressed
and worried every day."

It still takes him two years
to convince her that he's the guy.

"When I got married, I really did it
for better or for worse.

"With that little idea blown to hell
by this summer and you, it makes me

"cynically suspicious of any
attachment I might make.

"Aziz and I had a long conversation

"about you, and my situation
in general.

"He doesn't want to divorce me

"unless he's sure I'm going to be
happy and taken care of elsewhere."

It was inevitable that Lee left him
because she just could not live

without the artistic environment

that she had experienced in Paris
or even New York.

I don't know how she does it,
by the way, with her men.

I don't know how she manages to keep
all her men in love with her,

right the way through your life.

Man Ray is still there. Aziz,

she treats him terribly and has all
sorts of affairs behind... You know,

but he knows about them and he
even says, "If you leave me,

"can I be one of your lovers?"

But when she left him,
he gave her a portfolio of shares

so that she could always
be independent.

And he... You know,

what an amazing guy.

SHE CHUCKLES

AIR-RAID SIREN

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What brought Lee Miller to London
is Roland Penrose.

He is absolutely loaded.

But Lee's very independent,
so she wants her own job.

So, what does Lee know?

She knows how to model - not madly
useful in a city under bombardment -

and she knows how to take
photographs.

One day she meets the most dowdy,
unfashionable

tweedy, blue-stocking woman,

and this British woman who could not

be less, like, glamorous

American, scintillating,

gorgeous Lee Miller,

is the editor of Vogue,
and she is Audrey Withers.

And Lee offers Audrey
everything she needs.

Vogue is a fashion magazine.

Britain is a country
under rationing.

So, what Vogue celebrates
is, kind of, "make do and mend".

And so Lee is taking the pictures.

I mean, some of the pictures
are sort of hilarious

because the clothes, of course,
are borderline hideous.

Audrey Withers was an extraordinary
woman in her own right.

She had a real interest
in women's rights,

in women's independence,

and in the creativity and
contribution that they could make.

Women's magazines were key,
because you have to remember

that many British men were
in the Armed Forces and serving

overseas and that it was women
who were not only running

the household, but also taking
over men's roles.

And so, if the Ministry of
Information wanted to get a general

message out, they always factored in
the women, and the women's

magazines in particular.

Lee's transition from being a lapsed
fashion photographer to shooting

for Vogue was actually not
a huge step.

The big step was when she
became a photojournalist.

And then, one day, she meets a
young Life magazine photographer

called David Scherman,

and each has what the other needs.

EXPLOSION

David Scherman is a really very,
very good photographer

who is already, you know,
completely bloodied in war.

He's quite heroic, actually.

David Scherman was befriended
by Lee and they struck up

an extraordinarily close friendship.

And Roland invited Scherman
to come and live with them.

It was a menage a trois.

They were having a jolly good time,
those three!

SHE LAUGHS

HILARY ROBERTS: David Scherman
taught her the art of

news photography, and in order

to do what she wanted to do,
which was take photographs

that mattered, that were relevant
to the war effort and not simply

be confined to fashion,
she had to become

an official war correspondent.

I explained to Lee, "You're an
American. Why don't you just get

"a uniform and get accredited to the
American Army?"

And she said, "That's a good idea."

So she promptly bought
a uniform in Savile Row,

had it specially made. She took it
very seriously and decided

that she would be
a war photographer.

Audrey wants Lee

to cover the war.

Lee desperately wants
to cover the war.

Lee always sees an opportunity,

so war is opportunity, and just
goes, "I could do that."

Lee Miller gets dumped into this
town, that's pacified, to do

a story on women, and suddenly she's
under sniper fire.

GUNSHOTS

And one can only imagine that she
would have been utterly terrified,

but then slightly exhilarated.

EXPLOSION

The story was one of
mistaken intelligence.

She was able to go there
because it was thought

that Saint-Malo had already fallen,
that the battle was over.

In fact, it was pretty much
just beginning.

"From outside the town, we heard
bombers approaching

"over our shoulder. There were
three groups of B-26s.

"They passed and we could see

"the bombs away by their attitude,
if nothing else.

"I had the clothes I was standing
in, a couple of dozen films

"in an eiderdown blanket roll.

"I was the only photographer
for miles around,

"and I now owned a private war."

Remember that she had no training
for this sort of work.

No professional training
as a photographer had prepared

her for this sort of work. It was
"work it out as you go along".

"Deadly hit. For a moment,
I could see where and how.

"Then it was swallowed in smoke,
belching, mushrooming and columning,

"towering up, black and white.

"Our house shuddered and stuff
flew in the window.

"More bombs crashing, thundering,
flashing like Vesuvius."

The difficult bit
was becoming a writer.

She'd never written anything before.

But now, suddenly, she was having to
put words to pictures.

"I sheltered in a cramped dugout,
squatting under the ramparts.

"My heel ground into a dead,
detached hand, and I cursed the

"Germans for the sordid, ugly
destruction they had conjured up

"in this once beautiful town.

"I picked up the hand and hurled
it across the street and ran back

"the way I'd come, bruising my feet

"and crashing into the unsteady

"piles of stone and slipping
in blood. Christ, it was awful."

As a war photographer, I think it's

actually important to have fear,

but to know how to manage it.

Because that will also keep
you alive, you know.

I think if you're fearless,

you're likely to get
killed pretty quickly.

At one point
I had to run through sniper fire.

And, you know, ISIS was
150m away. I mean, that's nothing.

And, I mean, the fear that...that,
you know, just leading up to

that run between buildings, you
know, was like,

"Will this be my last run?

"Will I die? Will I get shot?"

There's an adrenaline rush,
of course, that gets you through.

Definitely, women like her
blazed a trail.

I think there is a type of woman
that goes into this war.

Women who were tough but funny,
irreverent, who really rejected

all the norms of what women's lives
should have been at that time.

There were no British female
photographers who did what

Lee Miller did. For the Americans,

they had a more open policy.

But the fact that there were only
four women photographers

who were accredited in that respect

gives you an idea of how rare
it still was.

The whole body of work from

Saint-Malo is fascinating

because it shows an evolution

in Lee Miller's thinking.

The tone and the mood darkens.

And I would say that that is almost
a turning point in Lee Miller's war,

because this is where, if you like,
she had her baptism of fire,

and from hereon in, until
the very end of her time

as a war correspondent,

this darker note never quite
leaves her photography.

CHEERING

CHEERING

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"Dear Audrey, I won't be the first
woman journalist in Paris,

"but I'll be the first dame
photographer, I think, unless

"someone parachutes in.

"It is bitter to me to go to Paris

"now that I have a taste
for gunpowder.

"Could you arrange that
Roland Penrose could read my piece

"soon, as I haven't written him
or anyone yet?"

Lee had fantastic stamina.

I would simply go to sleep, wake up
about six or eight hours later,

and she was still there
knocking...knocking, tapping away

at the typewriter.

TYPEWRITER KEYS CLICK

"Our boys were kissed and cheered
and showered with presents.

"They battled in one square
and celebrated in the next."

We were the first photographers
in many places. In fact, it got

to be sort of a joke.

I remember Marguerite Higgins
of the New York Herald Tribune

would continually arrive at a spot
and say, "How does it happen

"that when I'm just arriving at some
spot, Lee Miller and Dave Scherman

"are just leaving?"

increased dramatically as she saw
the results of the war.

"The love of death, which is
the under-pattern of the German

"living, caught up with the
high officials of the regime

"and they gave a great party,
toasted death and Hitler,

"and poisoned themselves.

"Leaning back on the sofa is a girl

"with extraordinarily pretty teeth,
waxen and dusty."

I think the power of that image is
sort of how quietly beautiful it is.

I think the light is very soft,
and I think

the composition is beautiful.

And I think that's very eerie,
of course, given the context

and given what had just happened.

But, to me, that's really the power
of a good photograph, is that,

A, it evokes emotions that are
unexpected,

but, B, it makes you ask questions.

And I think that that's exactly
what that image does.

CHURCH BELL TOLLS

"Germany is a beautiful landscape
dotted with jewel-like villages,

"blotched with ruined cities.

"The children have stilts and
marbles and tops and hoops,

"and they play with dolls.

"Mothers sew and sweep and bake,
and farmers plough and harrow,

"all just like real people -
but they aren't.

"They are the enemy.

"This is Germany and it is spring."

Lee's arrival with
Dave Scherman at Dachau

is one of the central times
in her story.

They came just in the very process
of the liberation of Dachau.

She felt it to be a deep moral

calling to reveal the truth

as she understood it.

DAVID SCHERMAN: Well, we had to just
sort of steel ourselves for it,

like a surgeon going into a
operating room or like a police

examiner going into a morgue to do
a postmortem.

If you started worrying about it,
you'd go to pot right away.

You'd just come apart at the seams.

HEARTBEAT

If you have a camera in your hand,
you suddenly think about it only,

and its being a job,

then you simply steel yourself to
the...to the horrors of the thing.

HEARTBEAT CONTINUES

"I implore you to believe
this is true.

"I usually don't take pictures

"of horrors, but don't think

"that every town and every area

"isn't rich with them.

"I hope Vogue will feel that it can
publish these pictures."

Audrey Withers and American Vogue

agreed to publish this work.

I think that coverage is the most

graphic and difficult that

Vogue Magazine has ever carried.

The pictures from Dachau
are incredible.

I don't know if this day and age
of people would publish them as much

because, ironically,
the more violence we see

and the more we're inundated
with images, the more kind

of prude we get.

Those images of bodies stacked
on top of each other,

you don't see those,
and that's happening.

I mean, there are mass graves
being unearthed in Syria now,

you know, but we don't see
those images.

I have met nobody who has seen

those scenes in any concentration

camp, who has talked about them

willingly or has been able to

walk away from them.

I had seen nothing.

She kept everything away from me.

I think that Lee definitely did not

want to revisit that experience

by talking about it.

You know, we're all very,
very different and we all process

trauma and, um, these scenes

in a very different way,

so I can't possibly know
how she felt

and what she walked away feeling.

But I do know for myself, you know,
it's important when I walk away

from a scene like that to revisit it
and to talk about it a lot.

And that's sort of how I deal
with my own trauma.

A lot of people with PTSD,
they never deal with it,

and they just shut down and it
doesn't go away and, in fact,

it's been proven that it gets
worse over time.

I interviewed several friends who
were very young women at the time

when they visited Lee at Farley
Farm, who said that sometimes,

late at night, at 3am, if they
stayed up with Lee and drank

with her - because she
would drink a great deal -

she would break down and
sometimes cry and tell them,

"You have to be careful about what
you let yourself in for."

And she would allude sometimes,
briefly, to those moments

in the concentration camps.

It was still with her.

If you take photographs like that,

they remain imprinted
on your brain.

So, Lee's only in Dachau
for actually a few hours.

What happens next is that she goes
to Hitler's apartment.

This is an example of the working
partnership of Lee and David,

the really efficient news-gathering
partnership, which means

that you find a goal and you
head for it.

And, um, if you're lucky,
you scoop the opposition.

"I've been carrying Hitler's Munich
address around in my pocket

"for years, and finally I had a
chance to use it,

"but mein host wasn't home."

We wound up in Hitler's home on
27 Regent Street,

which a bunch of GIs had simply
taken over as a place to crash.

And that was the spot that we got
some GIs to read a copy

of Hitler's Mein Kampf
with their feet up on Hitler's bed,

lying on Hitler's pillow.

"I took some pictures of the place,

"and I also got a good night's
sleep in Hitler's bed.

"I even washed the dirt of Dachau
off in his own tub."

We hadn't seen a bathtub for weeks,
so Lee immediately jumped into

the bathtub and I photographed her,
and I locked the door

so we wouldn't be disturbed.

And suddenly there was this
tremendous banging on the door.

The lieutenant was dying
to get in and shave.

And he said, you know, "Get
out of there. Whoever you are,

"you've been in there too long."

It was sort of the last of the...the
last of the Hitler myth right

there, in that spot that night.

The story of Lee Miller in Hitler's

bathtub has spread around the world,

and it's the one with which she's
most identified.

It's got all the elements -
a beautiful woman sitting in a bath

with no clothes on...

There is an equivalent photograph by
Lee of David Scherman in the bath,

and nobody is very interested
in looking at that one.

That photograph, for many
years after the war,

was actually completely forgotten.

And it was really only after her

death that it became

as well-known as it
currently is today.

So, initially, the idea was just
to have a bath,

and then they realised
what the circumstances were,

and between them they made
an enduring story out of it.

They placed the photograph
of Hitler by Heinrich Hoffmann,

Hitler's pet photographer,

and it was actually a kind
of vanity shot.

But the key to the shot
is the boots, because those boots...

..carried Lee around Dachau that
morning, and now she's grinding

"the filth of that place
into Hitler's nice, clean bath-mat.

And, of course, what neither of them
knew in that moment was,

way across Germany, in Berlin at
4:45 that afternoon, Hitler and

Eva Braun had killed themselves,

and so there's this kind of
incredible closing of a circle

in that image, as well as that
defiance of stamping the filth

into Hitler's bath-mat.

GUNSHOT

A strange-looking carving
by the modern sculptor Henry Moore

watches the arrival of a young lady
whose comings and goings make news.

The name is Lee Miller,
press photographer,

just back from gathering scoops
on the Continent.

Roland Penrose, surrealist artist,

welcomes her back and helps her to
get rid of the baggage

she's had to hump round on
her news, getting jobs.

The end of the war was, I think, the
most difficult thing that Lee faced,

and she really got lost.

I think, in a way, she
recognised that she was beaten.

KITTEN MEOWS

Sure, she was a peacetime
casualty in many ways.

Her objectives had been
taken away from her.

Her raison d'etre
was taken away from her.

Roland, by this time,
had sort of given up on her.

She was not answering his letters.

He'd taken up with someone else
in London, uh, and I saw

Lee's position as being badly
threatened.

Eventually it was Scherman
who said, "Go home."

And it was, I guess, with a big sigh
that she did decide finally to

knock it off and go back home.

It is as if that she opens the door,
walks back into her life

with Roland and nothing is changed.

It couldn't be further
from the truth.

He had to learn afresh how it was

to have this deeply damaged

and disturbed person, who he loved.

He had to cope with all of that.

She tried to go back into fashion,

taking pictures of hats and
handbags,

and tried to kind of go back to how
things were before the war,

but when you've watched
such life-changing things,

then it's very hard to adjust.

She's told by, you know,
a doctor she goes to see

to pull herself together.

She is also a raging alcoholic
by this point.

She then has lost her looks.

So, the biggest power that
she has always played on has gone.

Then we add that she gets pregnant.

Then she may well have had
postnatal depression.

She didn't find it very easy
to be a mother.

And then Roland Penrose,

who sees the woman of his life

just being absolutely destroyed,

comes up with a bright idea -

because he's very
tin-eared, Roland -

to move this woman, who is
completely urban, who loves

connecting with people, to a lonely
farm in the country,

where she knows nobody,

with a newborn baby.

It's astonishing to me
that she actually survived.

I think "lost" is a good way
to describe her at Farley Farm.

I think Lee was such a
complicated person.

All we could see as, you know, Tony
and I growing up, was somebody

who was just difficult.

I get a sense
that she was dissociated.

It's something that she used
effectively, and as a model

she could just disconnect
from her surroundings,

disconnect from everything
and just be this beautiful object.

And later, when she became
the combat photographer

and was in this terrible danger,

witnessing awful things, I think

she used that sense of dissociation

to detach from the horror

that surrounded her.

And I think that sense of
dissociation, that sense

of disconnect between her emotional

side and her physical side

inevitably came from her
childhood trauma.

The story of what happened to Lee

when she was seven years old

is hard to, um, clarify.

She was staying with friends
of the family, very good friends,

in, I believe, Brooklyn
for a sort of holiday.

These friends left the little girl

in the care of a young man

who was either a boarder
or a relative.

And what we know is that he took
advantage of this time

and he did indeed rape
the little girl.

After the rape, she was rushed home.

She was subjected to the most

painful, humiliating treatment

available at the time,

because she developed

a sexually transmitted disease.

Her mother, who was a nurse,
had to administer

this extraordinarily painful
treatment every day.

Her brother heard his sister
screaming in the bathroom.

And the whole thing was, of course,

hush-hush because this was a huge

scandal and no-one wanted it to be

known that this had happened

to little Elizabeth Miller.

It was the final piece in
the puzzle.

I could never really understand
why she was so secretive.

But as a child, she had learned

to keep secrets,

and that was important
for her survival.

And she was good at it.

Why she buried the past and all

of those photographs in boxes
in the attic...

..perhaps she wanted to put it
behind her, not dwell on these most

painful times and images
and moments...

..rather than address them head-on.

When she died...

..emotionally it affected me,
personally, very little.

And I didn't really shed tears for
her until I began writing

her biography, and that's when

I began to really understand her,

and that's when I practically

drowned my word processor,

because I realised
how much I'd missed.

There was so much I wish I'd known

about her and understood.

Yes, it's been an extraordinary

voyage of understanding.

When Lee died, I wanted to write
an obit for American Vogue,

because she died totally
unrecognised.

I wanted to write an obit, and I got
to thinking about what form

the obit would take.

Because she led six, eight, ten

discrete, totally different lives.

She was an amazing, unusual person.

Exasperating person, lovable person,

beautiful person, ugly person.

She was all of these
different things.

Those were her different lives.

The temptation is to seek women
that aren't quite so challenging.

But what we need are examples
like Lee Miller.

We need women that are complicated
and fully three-dimensional.

When I think about Lee Miller,

it wasn't that she was leaning in
to be taken seriously by the men.

She didn't even care.

She's just a woman who did not

apologise for who she was.