WEBVTT

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(upbeat electronic music)
(camera shutter clicking)

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- She did so much with an
extraordinary amount of courage.

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It\'s very hard, I think, for women today

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to understand the degree
of the risks that she took.

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- You see that, in Lee Miller\'s eyes,

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there is a flame there which is ignited

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when you see those photographs.

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(vocalizing)

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- She went for it, whatever it was.

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- She didn\'t let any of the conventions

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of being a woman hold her back.

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(glass shattering)

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- [Lee] I hope no one will
ever forget the subject matter

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for those pictures.

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I won\'t.

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(light electronic music)

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(soft music)

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- When I was growing up
I knew virtually nothing

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of my mum\'s past achievements.

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It was a book that she had closed.

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- People were trying to celebrate her,

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but she didn\'t want it.

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She wanted to move on
and she wanted to forget.

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- She packed her life into boxes,

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Daz and Heinz baked
beans, cardboard boxes,

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and she put them in the attic.

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- Well, my late wife, Suzanna,
found Lee\'s photographs

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in the attic of this old house.

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My first reaction was disbelief.

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- I think Lee was very
much burying the past.

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

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She cut a somewhat lonely figure.

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- I had known my mum as a useless drunk,

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as a hysterical kind of person
who even catching a train

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in Lewes was a major episode for her.

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I could not believe that
she was the same person

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that had created this material.

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

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(soft music)

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- I feel with Lee that she
knew she was gonna be a star.

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If you grow up in the suburbs, I mean,

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Poughkeepsie\'s a train ride from New York,

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all you want is the big city.

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So, Lee goes to New York.

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She has youth, she has
beauty, she\'s confident,

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

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(tires screeching)

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The story is

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that Lee Miller stepped out
in front of an automobile.

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(vocalizing)

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And as the driver swerved to a halt,

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the most powerful man in
fashion managed to scoop her up.

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And that man was Condé Nast,

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who was the founder of American Vogue.

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And what is a fact is
within a very short time

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of meeting Condé Nast, who
had a bit of a casting couch,

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apparently, but very
soon after meeting him

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she was on the cover of Vogue.

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(soft music)

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(camera shutter clicking)

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

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who is entirely comfortable in her skin,

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entirely comfortable with
who she is as a person,

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as a woman.

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And how thoroughly modern
she must have been then,

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how, beyond modern, how
probably groundbreaking she was.

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- I knew very little of her as a model.

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

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

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She never showed me the
beautiful pictures in Vogue

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of her looking absolutely fabulous.

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(soft music)

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- Part of the reason that Lee Miller

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was such a great model
is she\'d been modeling

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from the day she was born.

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Lee\'s father photographed
her all the time.

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- Theodore Miller was a
serious amateur photographer,

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quite adept at the techniques of the time,

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including the stereoscopic camera.

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Images would merge with each other

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to give you an illusion of depth.

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- Theodore would probably have
considered himself an artist,

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and he took pictures of his daughter that

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to our eyes are very dubious.

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(vocalizing)

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

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and it was part of the
stash that we found.

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I was quite shocked, actually,

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because I thought that
they were an invasion

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of the normal
father-daughter relationship.

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And of course by that time
I had got my own daughters

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and I could no more imagine me

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taking these kind of pictures!

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(vocalizing)

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- If you step back and don\'t
think that those pictures

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are of a father of a daughter,

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they\'re actually quite good
for an amateur photographer.

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

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then you just can\'t get over it.

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- It\'s a transgression of a relationship.

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- Theodore\'s photographs of
Lee I see as a collaboration.

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I see her as a participant.

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I see a life experience
so similar to my own.

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When mom was working on a
photograph it was a family affair.

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- I grew up in a family where
we were very comfortable

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with nudity and being
nude around each other.

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And it\'s very sad that
people cannot conceive

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of Lee engaging in
nudity around her father

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without it becoming sexualized.

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I think women and children
in art, the assumption

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is one of exploitation.

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And that is not what I see at all with her

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as a child subject or as an adult subject.

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- He did bring her up
as his favorite model,

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and this continued into
her teens and early 20s,

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apparently without any
distress, or qualms,

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or worries on her part,
as far as we can tell.

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(soft music)

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Having already learned quite
a bit about photography

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at home, she could talk photography

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with the great
photographers, like Steichen,

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with whom she worked.

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She was probably forming
the idea that she\'d like

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to take the photographs herself.

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And I think it was Steichen who said,

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\"Well, if you want to study
with one of the greats

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you should go to Paris
and study with Man Ray.\"

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(ship horn blowing)

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(upbeat jazz music)

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- Paris in the late \'20s
was the center of the world.

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Paris is Paris, and Paris is jazz.

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And Lee is jazz!

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Being in Paris in the
\'30s for a woman like Lee

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was literally about ripping
your corset off because,

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you know, it\'s when fashion changes,

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it\'s when the world changes.

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It\'s a moment of just huge possibility.

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- [Interviewer] You know, Lee,

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first I think we\'d better clear up

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just how you happened to be a photographer

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in the first place?

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- [Lee] I thought the best
way was to start out studying

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with one of the great masters
in the field, Man Ray.

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(upbeat jazz music)

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(camera shutter clicking)

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

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

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He said, \"Oh, no, you\'re not.

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I don\'t have students or apprentices.\"

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I said, \"You do now.\"

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- At first she was his student,

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and she was also his studio assistant,

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but they also became lovers early on.

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(light jazz music)

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

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fall for a man who was
basically half her height,

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not very golden?

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Because she had much to learn

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and he was a great photographer.

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(upbeat jazz music)

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- For Man Ray I think
it was the incarnation

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of the most improbable relationship

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that he could have imaged,
this incredibly beautiful,

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white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant
from New York dropping

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into his lap, in his life in this way.

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(camera shutter clicking)

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- There\'s still so much that Man Ray did

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with Lee Miller that was groundbreaking.

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I don\'t think anyone had
ever seen photography

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as that sort of daring.

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This level of artistic genius
between the pair of them,

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it resonates in photography today.

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She understands what Man
Ray is asking of her.

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- From my personal experience,
there is this sense

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of just knowing what
the photographer wants,

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and manipulating yourself
into these sort of shapes

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and positions, but also
being attuned to sort of look

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into the camera and convey life.

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It is an alchemy of two people:
the photographer, the muse.

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- Typically, historically,

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the artist has then taken the photographs,

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produced amazing work,
and walked away saying,

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\"Look at this amazing work that I made.\"

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As opposed to saying, \"Look
at this gift I\'ve been given

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and the extraordinary magic
of this collaboration.\"

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And he did not negate her, in retrospect,

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which I think again speaks
volumes about her; the extent

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of the respect that he had for her.

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(soft music)

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- Lee and Man fit perfectly into the world

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of the Surrealists in the 1930s.

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That movement seemed very,
not only very unconventional

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but very freeing, for the women as well,

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to be treated not only
as muses but as muses

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who were themselves artists
and could participate.

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- Lee\'s relationship with
Man Ray changed her life

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in the sense that it really made her

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into a Surrealist photographer.

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She could already do the
fashion and stuff like that

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but I think Man Ray really encouraged

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that wonderful element in her
work which is the surreal.

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(soft music)

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- I do think with Lee Miller
she is much more lauded

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as an artist and a
creator as well as a muse.

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I see a woman who is in charge,

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and she\'s the one calling the shots.

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And I just love that.

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(chuckling)

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- People forget that she
actually had her own studio

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in Paris, and she was working,

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and doing her own commissions,

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and working with Hoyningen-Huene,

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who was the boss of Paris Vogue Studios.

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- He did everything he could, almost,

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to further her photographic career.

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However, he also wanted to control her.

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- I think we could see,
as the relationship

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of a much younger woman
with a much older man,

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that initially the
power lies with the man,

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

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

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she got what she wanted.

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- And he struggled to try and possess

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and control this totally
uncontrollable woman.

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And that\'s what broke
them apart in the end,

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after three years.

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(glass shattering)
(dramatic music)

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(audience applauding)

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(soft music)

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\"Lee Miller a bride.\"

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\"Poughkeepsie, New
York, September the 4th.

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Mr. and Mrs. Theodore H. Miller

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of this city today announced the marriage

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of their daughter, Lee Miller,

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to Aziz Eloui Bey of Cairo, Egypt.\"

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(soft music)

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- Why did Lee Miller marry
an Egyptian businessman

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that she\'d met, I believe,
skiing, and moved to Cairo?

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He is extremely wealthy,
but he also offers her

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a kind of magic carpet
to the Arabian Nights,

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in her mind.

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So, they get married very
quickly in City Hall,

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and she tells her parents
something along the lines of,

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\"Oh, you know that guy, Aziz?

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Well, I just married him.\"

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- She found in Cairo a very
luxurious establishment,

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with servants, and cooks,
and all sorts of people

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to look after her.

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And for a time she found
a great change of scene,

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which interested her.

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For several years she was
quite happily immersed

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in her new life, but in time this too

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became insufficient for her.

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(soft music)

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- Lee realized it was full
of people who were pickled

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with drink and dried in the sun,

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and the women had nothing to do.

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And I think she got
bored extremely quickly.

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- As an antidote to the boredom of life,

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she found her Rolleiflex and
started taking pictures again.

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And this was one of the most

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exciting photographic
periods of her career.

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(soft music)

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- So she began going on
expeditions into the desert

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to take very unusual and, to my mind,

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highly successful photographs

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that have almost a more
spiritual dimension.

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- Certainly, the pictures she made

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through the torn fly
screen, \"Portrait of Space\",

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that shows that kind of conjunction

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of all of the surreal qualities,

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all of her internal
feelings in that one shot,

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in that one place.

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- It seems almost meditative to me.

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She had a strong desire to
escape into something else,

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in another place.

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And it was in Egypt that
she could explore that.

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(soft music)

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- When she was married to
Aziz and living in Egypt,

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she even writes about it in their letters,

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though she feels like she
needs to be a proper wife,

00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:26.767
and she knows what the expectations are,

00:20:26.767 --> 00:20:28.883
but she just finds it too hard.

00:20:29.800 --> 00:20:32.327
And it just doesn\'t work.

00:20:33.817 --> 00:20:37.700
- Aziz knew that Lee was
unhappy in Cairo and pining

00:20:37.700 --> 00:20:40.763
for Paris so he bought
her an airline ticket.

00:20:46.730 --> 00:20:47.763
And she flew to Paris.

00:20:47.763 --> 00:20:51.590
And on the night she
arrived she heard that there

00:20:51.590 --> 00:20:54.032
was this big party on.

00:20:54.032 --> 00:20:57.032
(upbeat jazz music)

00:20:58.498 --> 00:20:59.650
And it was a fancy dress party,

00:20:59.650 --> 00:21:01.540
and all of her Surrealist
friends were there.

00:21:01.540 --> 00:21:04.080
It must have been the
most wonderful reunion.

00:21:04.080 --> 00:21:06.873
- And that\'s where she met
my dad, Roland Penrose.

00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:15.340
- I think Aziz shot himself in
the foot, really, didn\'t he?

00:21:15.340 --> 00:21:17.790
\'Cause he was so nice
and bought her a ticket

00:21:17.790 --> 00:21:21.000
to go to Paris to see her friends,

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:23.520
and then the same night she
meets my granddad there.

00:21:23.520 --> 00:21:24.772
It\'s a bit like, \"Damn!\"

00:21:24.772 --> 00:21:25.820
(laughing)

00:21:25.820 --> 00:21:28.570
If you\'d known, would you
have bought the ticket, Aziz?

00:21:30.036 --> 00:21:33.850
(light piano music)

00:21:33.850 --> 00:21:37.240
- Lee is now, I think
it would be fair to say,

00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:42.023
in lust with Roland Penrose,
and he feels exactly the same.

00:21:52.970 --> 00:21:55.210
There is one extraordinary photograph

00:21:55.210 --> 00:22:00.050
which kind of sums up 1937 in Lee\'s life.

00:22:00.050 --> 00:22:02.910
They are on this holiday
with a group of people

00:22:02.910 --> 00:22:04.193
to the South of France.

00:22:07.333 --> 00:22:10.270
- I see a lot of guys with
their tops on and women

00:22:11.980 --> 00:22:15.080
with their tops off in
the picnic picture, which,

00:22:15.080 --> 00:22:18.440
if you ever want anything to
encompass the surrealists,

00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:20.008
is a great one.

00:22:20.008 --> 00:22:23.583
Also, you know, if you
zoom close into Roland

00:22:23.583 --> 00:22:26.710
you can see an Englishman
who\'s desperately trying

00:22:26.710 --> 00:22:29.570
to break free from his
Victorian upbringing,

00:22:29.570 --> 00:22:31.617
as he\'s looking very kind of,

00:22:31.617 --> 00:22:34.033
\"Yes, I\'m still doing liberation here.\"

00:22:34.033 --> 00:22:36.180
(chuckling)

00:22:36.180 --> 00:22:38.680
- She was the sort of
person that he wanted to be,

00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:39.530
in some respects.

00:22:40.389 --> 00:22:43.389
(upbeat jazz music)

00:22:53.090 --> 00:22:57.980
- The dynamic of the surrealists
is a dynamic of free love,

00:22:57.980 --> 00:23:01.710
but free love which
tends to favor men having

00:23:01.710 --> 00:23:05.280
the free love that they want
and not so much the women.

00:23:05.280 --> 00:23:07.970
Then you put Lee Miller into that mix

00:23:12.870 --> 00:23:16.637
and Lee is definitely
someone who always thinks,

00:23:16.637 --> 00:23:18.360
\"Well, I don\'t see why men should be able

00:23:18.360 --> 00:23:20.507
to do something that I can\'t.\"

00:23:20.507 --> 00:23:23.507
(upbeat jazz music)

00:23:29.950 --> 00:23:34.950
- For her to own the power of
her sexuality, to harness it,

00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:41.010
and then to enjoy it for
herself, I mean, that\'s crazy.

00:23:41.010 --> 00:23:44.830
I\'m so proud of all
the sex she had, right,

00:23:44.830 --> 00:23:47.120
like, \"Way to go.\"

00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:49.010
It makes me so happy to know that there

00:23:49.010 --> 00:23:53.450
is a blip in history
where at least one woman

00:23:54.890 --> 00:23:56.073
had a good time.

00:24:00.580 --> 00:24:02.780
- It\'s one of those moments where everyone

00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:05.747
in that photograph is signaling,

00:24:05.747 --> 00:24:10.170
\"I couldn\'t be anywhere
else than here right now.\"

00:24:10.170 --> 00:24:15.170
It\'s a moment of extraordinary
happiness and joy,

00:24:15.830 --> 00:24:18.780
but most of all freedom.

00:24:18.780 --> 00:24:21.464
And when we look at it now, of course,

00:24:21.464 --> 00:24:26.464
it\'s very poignant because what they know,

00:24:26.930 --> 00:24:31.313
and they do know, is that war is coming.

00:24:38.700 --> 00:24:40.700
- The summer of 1937

00:24:40.700 --> 00:24:43.510
was a wonderful affair with my granddad,

00:24:43.510 --> 00:24:45.893
but she did go back,
she went back to Egypt.

00:24:48.150 --> 00:24:50.567
(soft music)

00:24:58.630 --> 00:25:00.610
- [Roland] \"Darling Lee.

00:25:00.610 --> 00:25:01.820
This is hell.

00:25:01.820 --> 00:25:03.943
Another week on and still no news of you.

00:25:05.400 --> 00:25:07.913
Three weeks now since
your last letter arrived.

00:25:09.060 --> 00:25:11.847
I get more and more depressed
and worried every day.\"

00:25:14.470 --> 00:25:17.540
- It still takes him two
years to convince her

00:25:17.540 --> 00:25:18.723
that he\'s the guy.

00:25:21.157 --> 00:25:23.630
- [Lee] \"When I got
married I really did it

00:25:23.630 --> 00:25:25.580
\'for better or for worse\'.

00:25:25.580 --> 00:25:28.090
With that little idea blown
to hell by this summer,

00:25:28.090 --> 00:25:30.940
and you, it makes me cynically suspicious

00:25:30.940 --> 00:25:32.833
of any attachment I might make.

00:25:36.670 --> 00:25:38.158
Aziz and I had a long
conversation about you

00:25:38.158 --> 00:25:41.210
and my situation in general.

00:25:41.210 --> 00:25:42.360
He doesn\'t want to divorce me,

00:25:42.360 --> 00:25:44.080
unless he\'s sure I\'m going to be happy

00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:45.787
and taken care of elsewhere.\"

00:25:48.010 --> 00:25:50.230
- It was inevitable that Lee left him

00:25:50.230 --> 00:25:52.090
because she just could not live

00:25:52.090 --> 00:25:55.560
without the artistic environment

00:25:55.560 --> 00:25:59.310
that she\'d experienced in
Paris or even New York.

00:25:59.310 --> 00:26:02.160
- I don\'t know how she does
it, by the way, with her men.

00:26:03.157 --> 00:26:04.590
I don\'t know how she manages

00:26:04.590 --> 00:26:06.200
to keep all her men in love

00:26:06.200 --> 00:26:08.770
with her right the way through her life.

00:26:08.770 --> 00:26:10.680
Man Ray is still there.

00:26:10.680 --> 00:26:14.140
Aziz, she treats him
terribly and has all sorts

00:26:14.140 --> 00:26:15.500
of affairs behind, you know.

00:26:15.500 --> 00:26:16.620
But he knows about them.

00:26:16.620 --> 00:26:18.727
And he even says, \"If you leave me,

00:26:18.727 --> 00:26:22.010
can I be one of your lovers?\"

00:26:22.010 --> 00:26:24.799
But when she left him
he gave her a portfolio

00:26:24.799 --> 00:26:29.190
of shares so that she could
always be independent.

00:26:29.190 --> 00:26:33.180
And he, you know, what an amazing guy.

00:26:33.180 --> 00:26:35.550
(chuckling)

00:26:35.550 --> 00:26:38.050
(tense music)

00:26:55.303 --> 00:26:58.053
(dramatic music)

00:27:09.970 --> 00:27:13.223
- What brought Lee Miller
to London is Roland Penrose.

00:27:14.190 --> 00:27:17.220
He is absolutely loaded.

00:27:17.220 --> 00:27:20.883
But Lee is very independent,
so she wants her own job.

00:27:22.260 --> 00:27:24.020
So what does Lee know?

00:27:24.020 --> 00:27:27.350
She knows how to model, not madly useful

00:27:27.350 --> 00:27:28.880
in a city under bombardment,

00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:31.530
and she knows how to take photographs.

00:27:31.530 --> 00:27:34.030
(tense music)

00:27:40.100 --> 00:27:45.100
One day she meets the
most dowdy, unfashionable,

00:27:45.730 --> 00:27:49.463
tweedy, blue-stocking woman.

00:27:50.900 --> 00:27:52.590
And this British woman,

00:27:52.590 --> 00:27:56.340
who could not be less like glamorous,

00:27:56.340 --> 00:28:00.890
American, scintillating,
gorgeous Lee Miller,

00:28:00.890 --> 00:28:04.621
is the editor of Vogue,
and she is Audrey Withers.

00:28:04.621 --> 00:28:07.121
(tense music)

00:28:09.580 --> 00:28:14.004
And Lee offers Audrey
everything she needs.

00:28:14.004 --> 00:28:17.004
(upbeat jazz music)

00:28:26.820 --> 00:28:28.380
Vogue is a fashion magazine,

00:28:28.380 --> 00:28:30.090
Britain is a country under rationing,

00:28:30.090 --> 00:28:33.957
so what Vogue celebrates is
kind of \"Make do and mend\".

00:28:38.280 --> 00:28:40.480
And so Lee is taking the pictures.

00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:42.430
I mean, some of the pictures
are sort of hilarious

00:28:42.430 --> 00:28:45.633
because the clothes, of
course, are borderline hideous.

00:29:01.190 --> 00:29:03.180
- Audrey Withers was
an extraordinary woman

00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:04.493
in her own right.

00:29:07.110 --> 00:29:10.330
She had a real interest in women\'s rights,

00:29:10.330 --> 00:29:13.780
in women\'s independence,
and in the creativity

00:29:13.780 --> 00:29:15.783
and contribution that they could make.

00:29:18.450 --> 00:29:23.120
Women\'s magazines were key
because you have to remember

00:29:23.120 --> 00:29:26.800
that many British men
were in the armed forces

00:29:26.800 --> 00:29:29.210
and serving overseas and that it was women

00:29:29.210 --> 00:29:31.008
who were not only running the household

00:29:31.008 --> 00:29:34.340
but also taking over men\'s roles.

00:29:34.340 --> 00:29:36.650
And so if the Ministry
of Information wanted

00:29:36.650 --> 00:29:40.160
to get a general message
out, they always factored

00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:44.660
in the women, and the women\'s
magazines in particular.

00:29:44.660 --> 00:29:47.077
(soft music)

00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:00.640
- Lee\'s transition from being
a lapsed fashion photographer

00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:04.040
to shooting for Vogue was
actually not a huge step.

00:30:04.040 --> 00:30:08.113
The big step was when she
became a photojournalist.

00:30:26.310 --> 00:30:28.630
- And then one day she meets

00:30:28.630 --> 00:30:32.830
a young Life magazine
photographer called Davy Scherman.

00:30:32.830 --> 00:30:35.857
And each has what the other needs.

00:30:35.857 --> 00:30:38.607
(dramatic music)

00:30:40.090 --> 00:30:42.590
David Scherman is a really very,

00:30:42.590 --> 00:30:44.990
very good photographer
who is already, you know,

00:30:44.990 --> 00:30:46.817
completely bloodied in war.

00:30:46.817 --> 00:30:47.650
(gun firing)

00:30:47.650 --> 00:30:49.830
He\'s quite heroic, actually.

00:30:49.830 --> 00:30:52.005
David Scherman was befriended by Lee

00:30:52.005 --> 00:30:57.005
and they struck up an
extraordinarily close friendship.

00:30:57.510 --> 00:31:01.780
- And Roland invited Scherman
to come and live with them.

00:31:01.780 --> 00:31:03.990
It was a ménage à trois.

00:31:03.990 --> 00:31:07.715
- They were having a jolly
good time those three.

00:31:07.715 --> 00:31:10.190
(laughing)

00:31:10.190 --> 00:31:12.930
- David Scherman taught her the art

00:31:12.930 --> 00:31:14.220
of news photography.

00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:17.200
And in order to do what she wanted to do,

00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:19.570
which was take photographs that mattered,

00:31:19.570 --> 00:31:21.100
that were relevant to the war effort,

00:31:21.100 --> 00:31:24.200
and not simply be confined to fashion,

00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:28.488
she had to become an
official war correspondent.

00:31:28.488 --> 00:31:30.190
- I explained to Lee that, \"Why didn\'t,

00:31:30.190 --> 00:31:31.350
you\'re an American,

00:31:31.350 --> 00:31:33.670
why don\'t you just get a
uniform and get accredited

00:31:33.670 --> 00:31:34.540
to the American army?

00:31:34.540 --> 00:31:37.120
And she said, \"That\'s a good idea.\"

00:31:37.120 --> 00:31:41.340
So she promptly bought
a uniform in Savile Row,

00:31:41.340 --> 00:31:42.950
had it specially made.

00:31:42.950 --> 00:31:44.580
She took it very seriously and decided

00:31:44.580 --> 00:31:47.083
that she would be a war photographer.

00:31:48.350 --> 00:31:53.350
- Audrey wants Lee to cover the war.

00:31:55.590 --> 00:31:58.373
Lee desperately wants to cover the war.

00:32:01.330 --> 00:32:03.730
Lee always sees an opportunity,

00:32:03.730 --> 00:32:07.647
so war is opportunity, and
just goes, \"I could do that.\"

00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:11.690
(dramatic music)

00:32:18.260 --> 00:32:21.640
Lee Miller gets dumped into
this town that\'s pacified

00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:24.350
to do a story on women,

00:32:24.350 --> 00:32:26.446
and suddenly she\'s under sniper fire.

00:32:26.446 --> 00:32:27.300
(gun firing)

00:32:27.300 --> 00:32:30.410
And one can only imagine that she

00:32:30.410 --> 00:32:34.220
would have been utterly terrified,

00:32:34.220 --> 00:32:36.980
but then slightly exhilarated.

00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:39.730
(dramatic music)

00:32:55.620 --> 00:32:58.260
- The story was one of
mistaken intelligence.

00:32:58.260 --> 00:33:00.820
She was able to go there
because it was thought

00:33:00.820 --> 00:33:05.140
that St. Malo had already
fallen, that the battle was over.

00:33:05.140 --> 00:33:08.123
In fact, it was pretty
much just beginning.

00:33:11.697 --> 00:33:13.520
- [Lee] \"From outside
the town we heard bombers

00:33:13.520 --> 00:33:15.570
approaching over our shoulder.

00:33:15.570 --> 00:33:18.280
There were three groups of B-26s.

00:33:18.280 --> 00:33:20.060
They passed, and we could see the bombs

00:33:20.060 --> 00:33:21.967
by the attitude, if nothing else.\"

00:33:23.376 --> 00:33:26.376
(building rumbling)

00:33:27.837 --> 00:33:30.010
\"I had the clothes I was
standing in, a couple

00:33:30.010 --> 00:33:33.120
of dozen films, and an
eiderdown blanket roll.

00:33:33.120 --> 00:33:36.270
I was the only photographer
for miles around,

00:33:36.270 --> 00:33:38.880
and now I owned a private war.\"

00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:41.652
(dramatic music)

00:33:41.652 --> 00:33:45.300
- Remember that she had no
training for this sort of work.

00:33:45.300 --> 00:33:48.020
No professional training as a photographer

00:33:48.020 --> 00:33:49.640
had prepared her for this sort of work.

00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:52.317
It was \"Work it out as you go along.\"

00:33:59.388 --> 00:34:02.067
(explosion booming)

00:34:02.067 --> 00:34:03.710
- [Lee] \"Deadly hit.

00:34:03.710 --> 00:34:06.710
For a moment I could see where and how,

00:34:06.710 --> 00:34:10.070
then it was swallowed in
smoke, belching, mushrooming,

00:34:10.070 --> 00:34:13.111
and clumping, towering
up, black-and-white.

00:34:13.111 --> 00:34:14.820
(glass shattering)

00:34:14.820 --> 00:34:17.320
Our house shuddered, and
stuff flew in the window.

00:34:18.190 --> 00:34:22.117
More bombs crashing, thundering,
flashing like Vesuvius.\"

00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:33.900
- The difficult bit was becoming a writer.

00:34:33.900 --> 00:34:37.090
She\'d never written anything before,

00:34:37.090 --> 00:34:41.894
but now suddenly she was having
to put words to pictures.

00:34:41.894 --> 00:34:45.117
(dramatic music)

00:34:45.117 --> 00:34:47.020
- [Lee] \"I sheltered in a Kraut dugout,

00:34:47.020 --> 00:34:49.320
squatting under the ramparts.

00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:52.520
My heel ground into a dead, detached hand,

00:34:52.520 --> 00:34:54.800
and I cursed the Germans for the sordid,

00:34:54.800 --> 00:34:56.740
ugly destruction they had conjured

00:34:56.740 --> 00:34:58.393
in this once beautiful town.

00:34:59.230 --> 00:35:01.950
I picked up the hand, and
hurled it across the street,

00:35:01.950 --> 00:35:04.600
and ran back the way I\'d
come, bruising my feet,

00:35:04.600 --> 00:35:07.010
and crashing into the
unsteady piles of stone,

00:35:07.010 --> 00:35:08.900
and slipping in blood.

00:35:08.900 --> 00:35:10.437
Christ, it was awful.\"

00:35:12.930 --> 00:35:16.830
- As a war photographer I
think it\'s actually important

00:35:16.830 --> 00:35:19.393
to have fear but to know how to manage it,

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:25.160
because that will also keep you alive.

00:35:25.160 --> 00:35:27.000
You know, I think if you\'re fearless

00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:29.585
you\'re likely to get
killed pretty quickly!

00:35:29.585 --> 00:35:32.085
(tense music)

00:35:36.850 --> 00:35:39.680
At one point I had to
run through sniper fire,

00:35:39.680 --> 00:35:42.530
and, you know, ISIS was 150 meters away.

00:35:42.530 --> 00:35:43.960
I mean, that\'s nothing.

00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:47.710
And, I mean, the fear that,
you know, just leading up

00:35:47.710 --> 00:35:51.097
to that run between
buildings, you know, was like,

00:35:51.097 --> 00:35:53.260
\"Will this be my last, you know, run?

00:35:53.260 --> 00:35:54.093
Will I die?

00:35:54.093 --> 00:35:55.007
Will I get shot?\"

00:35:58.370 --> 00:36:00.250
There\'s an adrenalin rush, of course,

00:36:00.250 --> 00:36:01.350
that gets you through.

00:36:06.380 --> 00:36:09.513
Definitely, women like her blazed a trail.

00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:13.523
I think there is a type of
woman that goes into this war.

00:36:15.020 --> 00:36:18.080
Women who were tough
but funny, irreverent,

00:36:18.080 --> 00:36:20.320
who really rejected all the norms

00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:23.648
of what women\'s lives should
have been at that time.

00:36:23.648 --> 00:36:26.398
(dramatic music)

00:36:28.090 --> 00:36:30.270
- There were no British
female photographers

00:36:30.270 --> 00:36:32.240
who did what Lee Miller did.

00:36:32.240 --> 00:36:36.050
For the Americans they
had a more open policy,

00:36:36.050 --> 00:36:36.883
but the fact that there

00:36:36.883 --> 00:36:40.420
were only four women
photographers who were accredited

00:36:40.420 --> 00:36:44.558
in that respect gives you an
idea of how rare it still was.

00:36:44.558 --> 00:36:47.308
(dramatic music)

00:36:57.050 --> 00:37:01.130
The whole body of work from St. Malo

00:37:01.130 --> 00:37:04.610
is fascinating because
it shows an evolution

00:37:04.610 --> 00:37:06.073
in Lee Miller\'s thinking.

00:37:07.120 --> 00:37:11.030
The tone and the mood darkens.

00:37:11.030 --> 00:37:14.470
And I would say that that
is almost a turning point

00:37:14.470 --> 00:37:16.980
in Lee Miller\'s war because this is where,

00:37:16.980 --> 00:37:19.390
if you like, she had her baptism of fire,

00:37:19.390 --> 00:37:23.260
and from hereon in until the very end

00:37:23.260 --> 00:37:25.240
of her time as a war correspondent

00:37:25.240 --> 00:37:29.450
this darker note never quite
leaves her photography.

00:37:29.450 --> 00:37:32.200
(crowd cheering)

00:37:38.237 --> 00:37:39.660
- [Lee] \"Dear Audrey.

00:37:39.660 --> 00:37:42.410
I won\'t be the first
woman journalist in Paris,

00:37:42.410 --> 00:37:44.300
but I\'ll be the first dame photographer,

00:37:44.300 --> 00:37:46.923
I think, unless someone parachutes in.

00:37:48.650 --> 00:37:50.410
It is bitter for me to go to Paris now

00:37:50.410 --> 00:37:52.163
that I have a taste for gunpowder.

00:37:57.030 --> 00:37:58.600
Could you arrange that Roland Penrose

00:37:58.600 --> 00:38:00.870
could read my piece soon,
as I haven\'t written him

00:38:00.870 --> 00:38:01.937
or anyone yet.\"

00:38:03.680 --> 00:38:06.040
- Lee had fantastic stamina.

00:38:06.040 --> 00:38:08.600
I would simply go to
sleep, wake up about six

00:38:08.600 --> 00:38:09.433
or eight hours later,

00:38:09.433 --> 00:38:11.220
and she was still there knocking,

00:38:11.220 --> 00:38:12.770
tapping away at the typewriter.

00:38:16.307 --> 00:38:18.610
- [Lee] \"Our boys were
kissed, and cheered,

00:38:18.610 --> 00:38:20.880
and showered with presents.

00:38:20.880 --> 00:38:24.337
They battled in one square
and celebrated in the next.\"

00:38:26.300 --> 00:38:28.840
- We were the first
photographers in many places.

00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:31.060
In fact, it got to be sort of a joke.

00:38:31.060 --> 00:38:32.530
I remember Marguerite Higgins

00:38:32.530 --> 00:38:36.030
of the New York Herald Tribune
would continually arrive

00:38:36.030 --> 00:38:38.110
at a spot and say, \"How does it happen

00:38:38.110 --> 00:38:40.120
that when I\'m just arriving at some spot,

00:38:40.120 --> 00:38:43.237
Lee Miller and Dave
Scherman are just leaving?\"

00:38:43.237 --> 00:38:45.737
(tense music)

00:38:53.150 --> 00:38:57.420
- As she moved eastward with
David Scherman her hatred

00:38:57.420 --> 00:38:59.870
for the Germans increased dramatically

00:38:59.870 --> 00:39:02.223
as she saw the results of the war.

00:39:07.634 --> 00:39:10.051
(soft music)

00:39:22.137 --> 00:39:24.570
- [Lee] \"The love of death,
which is the underpattern

00:39:24.570 --> 00:39:27.610
of the German living, caught
up with the high officials

00:39:27.610 --> 00:39:30.340
of the regime, and they
gave a great party,

00:39:30.340 --> 00:39:33.863
toasted death and Hitler,
and poisoned themselves.

00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:40.364
Leaning back on the sofa is a girl

00:39:40.364 --> 00:39:44.987
with extraordinarily pretty
teeth, waxen and dusty.\"

00:39:46.750 --> 00:39:49.570
- I think the power of
that image is sort of

00:39:49.570 --> 00:39:52.230
how quietly beautiful it is.

00:39:52.230 --> 00:39:54.580
I think the light is very soft,

00:39:54.580 --> 00:39:57.510
and I think the composition is beautiful.

00:39:57.510 --> 00:40:00.040
And I think that\'s very eerie, of course,

00:40:00.040 --> 00:40:02.853
given the context and given
what had just happened.

00:40:04.658 --> 00:40:07.500
But to me that\'s really the
power of a good photograph

00:40:07.500 --> 00:40:11.090
is that, A, it evokes
emotions that are unexpected,

00:40:11.090 --> 00:40:13.790
but, B, it makes you ask questions.

00:40:13.790 --> 00:40:16.773
And I think that that\'s
exactly what that image does.

00:40:18.726 --> 00:40:21.309
(bell ringing)

00:40:22.417 --> 00:40:24.870
- [Lee] \"Germany is a beautiful landscape,

00:40:24.870 --> 00:40:26.740
dotted with jewel-like villages,

00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:28.750
blotched with ruined castles.

00:40:29.700 --> 00:40:32.810
The children have stilts,
and marbles, and tops,

00:40:32.810 --> 00:40:35.570
and hoops, and they play with dolls.

00:40:35.570 --> 00:40:37.910
Mothers sew, and sweep, and bake.

00:40:37.910 --> 00:40:40.210
And farmers plow and harrow.

00:40:40.210 --> 00:40:44.100
All just like real
people, but they aren\'t.

00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:45.910
They are the enemy.

00:40:45.910 --> 00:40:49.954
This is Germany, and it is spring.\"

00:40:49.954 --> 00:40:52.704
(dramatic music)

00:41:18.270 --> 00:41:22.180
- Lee\'s arrival with Dave
Scherman at Dachau is one

00:41:22.180 --> 00:41:24.573
of the central times in history.

00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:31.140
They came just in the very
process of the liberation

00:41:31.140 --> 00:41:31.973
of Dachau.

00:41:47.590 --> 00:41:52.590
She felt it to be a deep moral calling

00:41:52.650 --> 00:41:55.383
to reveal the truth as she understood it.

00:42:00.950 --> 00:42:03.050
- Well, we had to just sort
of steel ourselves for it,

00:42:03.050 --> 00:42:05.370
like a surgeon going
into an operating room

00:42:05.370 --> 00:42:08.170
or like a police examiner
going into a morgue

00:42:08.170 --> 00:42:09.410
to do a post-mortem.

00:42:09.410 --> 00:42:11.970
If you started worrying
about it you\'d go to pot,

00:42:11.970 --> 00:42:14.887
right away, you\'d just go,
come apart at the seams.

00:42:14.887 --> 00:42:18.310
(heart beating)

00:42:18.310 --> 00:42:20.220
If you have a camera in
your hand you suddenly think

00:42:20.220 --> 00:42:23.100
about \"it\" only and it\'s being a job,

00:42:23.100 --> 00:42:26.673
then you simply steel yourself
to the horrors of the thing.

00:42:29.147 --> 00:42:31.973
- [Lee] \"I implore you
to believe this is true.

00:42:33.130 --> 00:42:36.170
I usually don\'t take pictures of horrors,

00:42:36.170 --> 00:42:38.010
but don\'t think that every town

00:42:38.010 --> 00:42:40.223
and every area isn\'t rich with them.

00:42:41.500 --> 00:42:45.077
I hope Vogue will feel that it
can publish these pictures.\"

00:42:46.650 --> 00:42:49.960
- Audrey Withers and American Vogue agreed

00:42:49.960 --> 00:42:51.363
to publish this work.

00:42:53.270 --> 00:42:57.980
I think that coverage is the
most graphic and difficult

00:42:57.980 --> 00:43:01.123
that Vogue magazine has ever carried.

00:43:03.640 --> 00:43:06.600
- The pictures from Dachau are incredible.

00:43:06.600 --> 00:43:08.730
I don\'t know if this day and age if people

00:43:08.730 --> 00:43:12.050
would publish them as
much because, ironically,

00:43:12.050 --> 00:43:13.932
the more violence we see

00:43:13.932 --> 00:43:17.010
and the more we\'re inundated
with images the more kind

00:43:17.010 --> 00:43:18.273
of prude we get.

00:43:20.690 --> 00:43:24.582
Those images of bodies
stacked on top of each other,

00:43:24.582 --> 00:43:26.340
you don\'t see those.

00:43:26.340 --> 00:43:27.173
And that\'s happening.

00:43:27.173 --> 00:43:30.820
I mean, there are mass graves
being unearthed in Syria now,

00:43:30.820 --> 00:43:33.647
you know, but we don\'t see those images.

00:43:33.647 --> 00:43:36.397
(dramatic music)

00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:44.960
- I have met nobody who
has seen those scenes

00:43:44.960 --> 00:43:48.350
in any concentration camp who has talked

00:43:48.350 --> 00:43:50.890
about them willingly or has been able

00:43:50.890 --> 00:43:52.253
to walk away from them.

00:43:57.370 --> 00:43:58.933
- I had seen nothing.

00:44:01.450 --> 00:44:05.023
She kept everything away from me.

00:44:11.095 --> 00:44:14.210
I think that Lee definitely
did not want to revisit

00:44:14.210 --> 00:44:16.453
that experience by talking about it.

00:44:26.847 --> 00:44:28.630
- You know, we\'re all
very, very different,

00:44:28.630 --> 00:44:33.440
and we all process trauma and these scenes

00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:34.550
in a very different way,

00:44:34.550 --> 00:44:37.870
so I can\'t possibly know how she felt

00:44:37.870 --> 00:44:39.743
and what she walked away feeling.

00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:46.490
But I do know for myself,
you know, it\'s important

00:44:46.490 --> 00:44:49.660
when I walk away from a
scene like that to revisit it

00:44:49.660 --> 00:44:51.630
and to talk about it a lot,

00:44:51.630 --> 00:44:54.573
and that\'s sort of how I
deal with my own trauma.

00:44:58.850 --> 00:45:02.100
A lot of people with PTSD,
they never deal with it,

00:45:02.100 --> 00:45:05.150
and they just shut down,
and it doesn\'t go away.

00:45:05.150 --> 00:45:08.523
And in fact it\'s been proven
that it gets worse over time.

00:45:15.120 --> 00:45:16.930
- I interviewed several friends,

00:45:16.930 --> 00:45:18.820
who were very young women at the time

00:45:18.820 --> 00:45:21.270
when they visited Lee at Farley Farm,

00:45:21.270 --> 00:45:26.270
who said that sometimes
late at night, at three a.m.

00:45:27.420 --> 00:45:30.040
if they stayed up with
Lee and drank with her,

00:45:30.040 --> 00:45:32.440
because she would drink a great deal,

00:45:32.440 --> 00:45:36.607
she would break down, and
sometimes cry, and tell them,

00:45:36.607 --> 00:45:40.780
\"You have to be careful about
what you let yourself in for.\"

00:45:40.780 --> 00:45:44.160
And she would allude, sometimes, briefly,

00:45:44.160 --> 00:45:46.660
to those moments in the
concentration camps.

00:45:46.660 --> 00:45:47.833
It was still with her.

00:45:51.311 --> 00:45:52.200
If you take photographs

00:45:52.200 --> 00:45:55.983
like that they remain
imprinted on your brain.

00:45:58.106 --> 00:46:00.950
(soft electronic music)

00:46:00.950 --> 00:46:04.790
- So Lee\'s only in Dachau
for actually a few hours.

00:46:04.790 --> 00:46:08.763
What happens next is that she
goes to Hitler\'s apartment.

00:46:11.620 --> 00:46:14.030
- It is an example of
the working partnership

00:46:14.030 --> 00:46:18.066
of Lee and David, the really
efficient news-gathering

00:46:18.066 --> 00:46:21.602
partnership, which means
that you find a goal

00:46:21.602 --> 00:46:23.590
and you head for it,

00:46:23.590 --> 00:46:27.477
and if you\'re lucky you
scoop the opposition.

00:46:27.477 --> 00:46:30.757
(soft electronic music)

00:46:30.757 --> 00:46:32.450
- [Lee] \"I\'ve been carrying
Hitler\'s Munich address

00:46:32.450 --> 00:46:35.330
around in my pocket for years,
and finally I had a chance

00:46:35.330 --> 00:46:36.397
to use it.

00:46:36.397 --> 00:46:37.747
But mein host wasn\'t home.\"

00:46:39.220 --> 00:46:43.420
- We wound up in Hitler\'s
home on 27 Regent Street,

00:46:43.420 --> 00:46:45.900
which the bunch of GIs had
simply taken over as a place

00:46:45.900 --> 00:46:47.440
to crash.

00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:50.930
And that was the spot that we
got some GIs to read a copy

00:46:50.930 --> 00:46:54.226
of Hitler\'s Mein Kampf with
their feet up on Hitler\'s bed,

00:46:54.226 --> 00:46:56.213
lying on Hitler\'s pillow.

00:46:58.085 --> 00:46:59.357
- [Lee] \"I took some pictures of the place

00:46:59.357 --> 00:47:01.570
and I also got a good night\'s
sleep in Hitler\'s bed.

00:47:01.570 --> 00:47:04.860
I even washed the dirt of
Dachau off in his own tub.\"

00:47:04.860 --> 00:47:07.670
- We hadn\'t seen a bathtub for weeks.

00:47:07.670 --> 00:47:09.859
So Lee immediately
jumped into the bathtub,

00:47:09.859 --> 00:47:11.497
and I photographed her,

00:47:11.497 --> 00:47:14.400
and I locked the door so
we wouldn\'t be disturbed.

00:47:14.400 --> 00:47:16.960
And suddenly there was this
tremendous banging on the door.

00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:19.730
The lieutenant was dying
to get in and shave.

00:47:19.730 --> 00:47:21.250
And he said, you know, \"Get out of there,

00:47:21.250 --> 00:47:24.150
you know, whoever you are,
you\'ve been in there too long.\"

00:47:25.903 --> 00:47:27.730
It was sort of the last

00:47:27.730 --> 00:47:30.943
of the Hitler myth right
there in that spot that night.

00:47:32.660 --> 00:47:36.590
- The story of Lee Miller
in Hitler\'s bathtub

00:47:36.590 --> 00:47:39.950
has spread around the
world, and it\'s the one

00:47:39.950 --> 00:47:42.610
with which she\'s most identified.

00:47:42.610 --> 00:47:45.060
It\'s got all the elements:
a beautiful woman sitting

00:47:45.060 --> 00:47:46.980
in a bath with no clothes on.

00:47:46.980 --> 00:47:50.410
There is an equivalent photograph
by Lee of David Scherman

00:47:50.410 --> 00:47:52.690
in the bath, and nobody is very interested

00:47:52.690 --> 00:47:53.840
in looking at that one.

00:47:58.578 --> 00:48:00.995
(vocalizing)

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:07.760
That photograph for many years

00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:10.870
after the war was actually
completely forgotten.

00:48:10.870 --> 00:48:14.000
And it was really only after her death

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:17.223
that it became as well known
as it currently is today.

00:48:19.530 --> 00:48:22.880
So, initially, the idea
was just to have a bath.

00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:25.780
And then they realized what
the circumstances were.

00:48:25.780 --> 00:48:28.563
And between them they made
an enduring story out of it.

00:48:31.300 --> 00:48:34.800
- They placed the photograph
of Hitler by Heinrich Hoffmann,

00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:37.110
Hitler\'s pet photographer.

00:48:37.110 --> 00:48:39.660
And it was actually a kind of vanity shot.

00:48:39.660 --> 00:48:42.290
But the key to the shot is the boots

00:48:42.290 --> 00:48:46.240
because those boots
carried Lee around Dachau

00:48:46.240 --> 00:48:48.610
that morning and now
she\'s grinding the filth

00:48:48.610 --> 00:48:51.113
of that place into Hitler\'s
nice, clean bath mat.

00:48:52.087 --> 00:48:54.504
(vocalizing)

00:48:59.540 --> 00:49:01.760
And of course what neither
of them knew in that moment

00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:05.700
was way across Germany in
Berlin at 4:45 that afternoon,

00:49:05.700 --> 00:49:07.850
Hitler and Eva Braun
had killed themselves.

00:49:07.850 --> 00:49:11.430
And so there\'s this kind
of incredible closing

00:49:11.430 --> 00:49:15.030
of a circle in that image
as well as that defiance

00:49:15.030 --> 00:49:18.330
of stamping the filth
into Hitler\'s bath mat.

00:49:18.330 --> 00:49:20.747
(gun firing)

00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:28.210
- [Narrator] A strange-looking carving

00:49:28.210 --> 00:49:31.080
by the modern sculptor Henry
Moore watches the arrival

00:49:31.080 --> 00:49:34.070
of a young lady whose
comings and goings make news.

00:49:34.070 --> 00:49:36.410
The name is Lee Miller,
press photographer,

00:49:36.410 --> 00:49:39.290
just back from gathering
scopes on the Continent.

00:49:39.290 --> 00:49:41.980
Roland Penrose, Surrealist
artist, welcomes her back

00:49:41.980 --> 00:49:43.800
and helps her to get rid
of the baggage she\'s had

00:49:43.800 --> 00:49:45.920
to hump round on her news-getting jobs.

00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:48.580
- The end of the war is I
think the most difficult thing

00:49:48.580 --> 00:49:50.440
that Lee faced.

00:49:50.440 --> 00:49:52.573
And she really got lost.

00:49:53.420 --> 00:49:57.653
I think in a way she
recognized that she was beaten.

00:49:59.130 --> 00:50:02.250
(soft music)

00:50:02.250 --> 00:50:03.716
- I\'m sure she was a peacetime casualty,

00:50:03.716 --> 00:50:04.633
in many ways.

00:50:09.020 --> 00:50:11.310
Her objectives had been
taken away from her.

00:50:11.310 --> 00:50:14.927
Her raison d\'être was taken away from her.

00:50:17.080 --> 00:50:20.170
Roland, by this time, had
sort of given up on her.

00:50:20.170 --> 00:50:22.590
She was not answering his letters.

00:50:22.590 --> 00:50:25.813
He\'d taken up with someone else in London,

00:50:26.787 --> 00:50:30.673
and I saw Lee\'s position
as being badly threatened.

00:50:34.980 --> 00:50:39.357
- Eventually it was Scherman
who said, \"Go home.\"

00:50:43.895 --> 00:50:45.740
- {David] And it was, I
guess, with a big sigh

00:50:45.740 --> 00:50:47.860
that she did decide
finally to knock it off

00:50:47.860 --> 00:50:50.580
and go back home.

00:50:50.580 --> 00:50:53.040
- It is as if she opens the door,

00:50:53.040 --> 00:50:55.080
walks back into her life with Roland,

00:50:55.080 --> 00:50:57.240
and nothing has changed.

00:50:57.240 --> 00:50:59.243
It couldn\'t be further from the truth.

00:51:01.450 --> 00:51:04.560
He had to learn afresh how it was

00:51:04.560 --> 00:51:08.948
to have this deeply damaged
and disturbed person

00:51:08.948 --> 00:51:11.255
who he loved.

00:51:11.255 --> 00:51:12.855
He had to cope with all of that.

00:51:19.370 --> 00:51:22.470
- She tried to go back into
fashion, taking pictures

00:51:22.470 --> 00:51:26.010
of hats and handbags, and tried to kind

00:51:26.010 --> 00:51:29.310
of go back to how things
were before the war,

00:51:29.310 --> 00:51:32.320
but when you\'ve watched
such life-changing things

00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:34.363
then it\'s very hard to adjust.

00:51:35.790 --> 00:51:37.980
- She\'s told by, you
know, a doctor she goes

00:51:37.980 --> 00:51:40.840
to see to pull herself together.

00:51:40.840 --> 00:51:45.600
She is also a raging
alcoholic by this point.

00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:48.330
She then has lost her looks.

00:51:48.330 --> 00:51:51.590
So the biggest power that
she has always played

00:51:51.590 --> 00:51:56.590
on has gone, then we add
that she gets pregnant.

00:52:00.060 --> 00:52:03.670
Then she may well have
had postnatal depression,

00:52:03.670 --> 00:52:06.103
but she didn\'t find it
very easy to be a mother.

00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:12.960
And then Roland Penrose, who
sees the woman of his life

00:52:13.460 --> 00:52:15.480
just being absolutely destroyed,

00:52:15.480 --> 00:52:17.361
comes up with the bright idea,

00:52:17.361 --> 00:52:22.361
because he\'s very tin-eared,
Roland, to move this woman,

00:52:23.130 --> 00:52:26.720
who is completely urban, who
loves connecting with people,

00:52:26.720 --> 00:52:31.720
to a lonely farm in the
country where she knows nobody,

00:52:31.823 --> 00:52:33.943
with a newborn baby.

00:52:36.540 --> 00:52:41.095
It\'s astonishing to me
that she actually survived.

00:52:41.095 --> 00:52:43.512
(soft music)

00:52:51.920 --> 00:52:54.100
- I think lost is a good way to describe

00:52:54.100 --> 00:52:55.623
her at Farley Farm.

00:52:57.800 --> 00:53:00.870
I think Lee was such a complicated person.

00:53:00.870 --> 00:53:04.786
All we could see as, you
know, Tony and I growing up,

00:53:04.786 --> 00:53:07.223
was somebody who was just difficult.

00:53:10.450 --> 00:53:15.103
- I get a sense that she was dissociated.

00:53:16.410 --> 00:53:20.090
It\'s something that she used effectively,

00:53:20.090 --> 00:53:23.005
and as a model she could just disconnect

00:53:23.005 --> 00:53:26.060
from her surroundings,
disconnect from everything

00:53:26.060 --> 00:53:28.640
and just be this beautiful object.

00:53:28.640 --> 00:53:32.360
And later when she became
the combat photographer

00:53:32.360 --> 00:53:36.826
and was in this terrible
danger witnessing awful things,

00:53:36.826 --> 00:53:39.640
I think she used that
sense of dissociation

00:53:39.640 --> 00:53:43.073
to detach from the horror
that surrounded her.

00:53:46.562 --> 00:53:48.590
And I think that sense of dissociation,

00:53:48.590 --> 00:53:51.180
that sense of disconnect
between her emotional side

00:53:51.180 --> 00:53:52.900
and her physical side,

00:53:52.900 --> 00:53:55.683
inevitably came from her childhood trauma.

00:54:00.480 --> 00:54:02.830
- The story of what happened to Lee

00:54:02.830 --> 00:54:07.830
when she was seven years
old is hard to clarify.

00:54:11.660 --> 00:54:13.920
She was staying with
friends of the family,

00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:16.890
very good friends, in, I believe, Brooklyn

00:54:16.890 --> 00:54:18.533
for a sort of holiday.

00:54:19.390 --> 00:54:23.400
These friends left the
little girl in the care

00:54:23.400 --> 00:54:27.473
of a young man who was either
a border or a relative.

00:54:29.200 --> 00:54:33.480
And what we know is that he
took advantage of this time

00:54:33.480 --> 00:54:35.733
and he did indeed rape the little girl.

00:54:43.040 --> 00:54:45.060
After the rape she was rushed home.

00:54:45.060 --> 00:54:48.440
She was subjected to the most painful,

00:54:48.440 --> 00:54:51.160
humiliating treatment
available at the time

00:54:51.160 --> 00:54:55.390
because she developed a
sexually transmitted disease.

00:54:55.390 --> 00:54:57.210
Her mother, who was a nurse,

00:54:57.210 --> 00:55:00.810
had to administer this extraordinarily

00:55:00.810 --> 00:55:02.890
painful treatment every day.

00:55:02.890 --> 00:55:06.410
Her brother heard his sister
screaming in the bathroom,

00:55:06.410 --> 00:55:09.610
and the whole thing was,
of course, hush-hush

00:55:09.610 --> 00:55:13.750
because this was a huge
scandal and no one wanted it

00:55:13.750 --> 00:55:15.580
to be known that this had happened

00:55:15.580 --> 00:55:18.993
to little Elizabeth Miller.

00:55:29.360 --> 00:55:32.440
- [Antony] It was the
final piece in the puzzle.

00:55:32.440 --> 00:55:36.063
I could never really understand
why she was so secretive.

00:55:36.900 --> 00:55:41.510
But as a child she had
learned to keep secrets,

00:55:41.510 --> 00:55:44.750
and that was important for her survival,

00:55:44.750 --> 00:55:45.900
and she was good at it.

00:55:53.380 --> 00:55:57.220
- Why she buried the past
and all of those photographs

00:55:57.220 --> 00:56:02.220
in boxes in the attic, perhaps she wanted

00:56:02.360 --> 00:56:07.360
to put it behind her, not dwell
on these most painful times

00:56:07.970 --> 00:56:12.693
and images and moments, rather
than address them head on.

00:56:27.360 --> 00:56:32.360
- When she died, emotionally
it affected me, personally,

00:56:32.750 --> 00:56:33.973
very little.

00:56:36.070 --> 00:56:37.730
And I didn\'t really shed tears

00:56:37.730 --> 00:56:41.580
for her until I began
writing her biography,

00:56:41.580 --> 00:56:44.010
and that\'s when I began
to really understand her

00:56:44.010 --> 00:56:47.726
and that\'s when I practically
drowned my word processor

00:56:47.726 --> 00:56:50.740
because I realized how I much I\'d missed.

00:56:50.740 --> 00:56:54.563
There was so much I wish I\'d
known about her and understood.

00:56:55.670 --> 00:57:00.670
Yes, it\'s been an extraordinary
voyage of understanding.

00:57:01.515 --> 00:57:04.515
(light piano music)

00:57:09.979 --> 00:57:13.990
- When Lee died I wanted to
write an obit for American Vogue

00:57:13.990 --> 00:57:16.603
because she died totally unrecognized.

00:57:19.030 --> 00:57:21.616
I wanted to write an obit,
and I got to thinking

00:57:21.616 --> 00:57:24.067
about what the form the
obit would take because

00:57:25.180 --> 00:57:29.723
she led six, eight, 10 discreet,
totally different lives.

00:57:35.940 --> 00:57:40.680
She was an amazing, unusual
person, exasperating person,

00:57:40.680 --> 00:57:44.300
lovable person, beautiful
person, ugly person.

00:57:44.300 --> 00:57:45.660
She was all of these different things.

00:57:45.660 --> 00:57:47.210
Those were her different lives.

00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:51.650
- The temptation is to seek women

00:57:51.650 --> 00:57:53.500
that aren\'t quite so challenging,

00:57:53.500 --> 00:57:56.560
but what we need are
examples like Lee Miller.

00:57:56.560 --> 00:57:59.380
We need women that are complicated

00:57:59.380 --> 00:58:01.563
and fully three-dimensional.

00:58:04.096 --> 00:58:05.696
- When I think about Lee Miller,

00:58:06.630 --> 00:58:09.740
it wasn\'t that she was leaning
in to be taken seriously

00:58:09.740 --> 00:58:12.213
by the men, she didn\'t even care.

00:58:13.190 --> 00:58:18.190
She\'s just a woman who did
not apologize for who she was.

00:58:19.886 --> 00:58:22.719
(soft jazz music)