In the Lee movie ending, it is revealed that the young interviewer is Lee Miller’s son, Anthony Penrose, imagining a conversation with his late mother. After her death in 1977, Anthony discovers her hidden war photography and documents her life’s work, which she had never shared with him directly.
Highlights
- Kate Winslet stars as Lee Miller, a war photographer in Lee.
- Lee Miller transitioned from modeling to documenting WWII.
- She photographed women in war, focusing on their struggles.
- Lee witnessed the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and captured them through her lens.
- The film’s ending reveals an imagined interview with her son, Anthony Penrose.
- Anthony discovered his mother’s war photography only after she died in 1977.
Kate Winslet shines as Lee Miller in Lee, portraying the extraordinary life of a model turned war photographer during WWII.
The film shifts between two timelines—1945, when Lee was in the midst of war-stricken Europe, and 1977, when she reflects on her life as an older woman.
The story begins with a dramatic scene of Lee photographing a soldier’s boot in a European city under siege, followed by a sudden explosion.
This sets the tone for the challenges she faced as a war photographer, capturing raw moments amidst danger.
In 1977, we see an older Lee, sitting in her home in England, being interviewed by a young man. Lee is reluctant, finding interviews pointless, describing them as a “gentler form of interrogation.”
The young interviewer starts by suggesting that Lee sought fame, a claim she firmly denies. Through this exchange, the film gradually shows Lee’s incredible life—marked by bravery, passion, and trauma.
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Lee’s Journey from Model to War Photographer
In flashbacks to 1938, Lee recounts her life in Paris, where she mingled with artists, including the famous Man Ray.
As Adolf Hitler rose to power, she met Englishman Roland Penrose and began a romance with him.
When the war escalated, Lee moved to London with Roland, pursuing photography as she was no longer considered a sought-after model.
Vogue magazine in London, where she worked, wanted to shift its focus from fashion to wartime stories.
Lee’s passion for documenting war grew, but she faced roadblocks—British laws prohibited women from going to the war front.
However, Lee was determined. After returning to the U.S., she found her way back to Europe through Vogue USA, which allowed her to cover the war.
Her career as a war photographer flourished as she focused on the experiences of women during the conflict.
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Lee’s Early Experiences as a War Photographer
Initially, Lee captured life in wartime London, focusing on women serving in the British Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the female branch of the army.
She photographed women operating searchlights to track German bombers, and even documented everyday details, such as women’s underwear drying after a quick wash, highlighting the harsh conditions they endured.
However, sexism remained a constant challenge. Male colleagues, including renowned photographer Cecil Beaton, showed disdain for women journalists.
Although British generals sometimes restricted access out of concern, many of the barriers Lee faced were rooted in sexist attitudes.
Despite these challenges, Lee was undeterred and continued to document the war, eventually covering the liberation of Paris.
But even after Paris was freed from Nazi rule, Lee knew the war’s brutality raged on in other parts of Europe.
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Lee’s Shocking Discovery: Nazi Concentration Camps
While on assignment, Lee partnered with photojournalist David E. Scherman from Life magazine.
The two often worked together, and their partnership led them to one of the darkest chapters of the war—the Nazi concentration camps.
As they followed reports of missing people and Nazi atrocities, Lee and David gained access to one such camp shortly after its liberation.
The scenes they witnessed were harrowing—piles of dead bodies, skeletal survivors, and abandoned train coaches filled with victims of the Holocaust.
Lee’s photographs from the concentration camps were among the first published images that exposed the horrors of the genocide to the world.
The experience left Lee deeply scarred, and the trauma of what she saw haunted her for the rest of her life.
This period also marked the beginning of her struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, a coping mechanism for the psychological toll of war.
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Lee’s Personal Trauma and Emotional Breakdown
During Lee’s most emotionally intense scene, the character reveals a deeply personal trauma that had haunted her since childhood.
In a moment of vulnerability, Lee breaks down in front of her friend Audrey Withers, the editor at Vogue, after being frustrated with the magazine’s refusal to publish much of her work.
She reveals that she had been sexually assaulted by a friend of her father’s when she was a teenager, and the memory of this horrific event had never left her.
This revelation explains her fierce protectiveness of women and her focus on documenting their suffering during the war.
In one particularly powerful scene, Lee witnesses a British soldier attempting to assault a French woman after the liberation of Paris and intervenes.
She was also deeply disturbed by the plight of women who were persecuted by their own countrymen for allegedly associating with German soldiers, something she captured in her photography.
These experiences, combined with her own past trauma, contributed to Lee’s emotional unraveling later in life.
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The Final Scene
The film’s final scene delivers an emotional twist. As the young man continues to interview the older Lee, it is revealed that he is actually her son, Anthony Penrose. In reality, this interview never happened.
Instead, the conversation is imagined by Anthony, who after his mother’s death in 1977, discovered her hidden collection of photographs and writings. He had little knowledge of the extent of her career as a war photographer during her lifetime.
Through this imagined dialogue, Anthony attempts to understand his mother’s bravery and pain. Lee had never shared her war experiences with her family, perhaps due to her high expectations of herself and the belief that her work was incomplete or unimportant.
It was only after her death that Anthony discovered the full scope of her career. He went on to honor her memory by writing a biography and continuing her legacy as a photographer himself.
