Lee with Ellen Kuras and Phillip Noyce (Ep. 496)

The Director’s Cut - A DGA Podcast

Directors Guild of America

Tv & Film

4.6 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Director Ellen Kuras discusses her new film, Lee, with fellow Director Phillip Noyce in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, she discusses how her skillset as a cinematographer informed her directing, how she aimed to reach beyond the constraints of a typical biopic to create something more complex and working with Kate Winslet to capture Lee as a multidimensional character. The film tells the true story of Lee Miller, who in the 1940s decides to abandon her career as a fashion model and become Vogue’s war correspondent during World War II. Capturing the extremes of the human experience in some of the most indelible images of war, Lee cements herself as one of the greatest war photographers of the 20th century. See photos and a summary of this event below: https://dga.org/Events/2024/Dec2024/Lee_QnA_1024

Transcript

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0:00.0	when you think about so many people who came back from the war, you know, they fell into silence.
0:05.6	They didn't talk about what happened to them. And we didn't know to ask in many ways or
0:11.7	people didn't dare ask because they knew that they, these people wanted to bury the past,
0:16.8	much like Lee did. And so, you know, it's another reminder for us of making our own history and going back to the past and asking those questions.
0:49.5	Music Hello, and welcome back to the Director's Cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.
0:56.0	In this episode, the life of famed war photographer Lee Miller is explored in director Ellen Curis' biopic, Lee.
0:59.4	The film tells the true story of Lee Miller, who in the 1940s decides to abandon her
1:04.9	career as a fashion model and become Vogue's war correspondent during World War II.
1:10.8	Capturing the extremes of the human experience in some of the most indelible images of war,
1:15.6	Lee cements herself as one of the greatest war photographers of the 20th century.
1:21.6	In addition to Lee, Curis' other directorial credits include episodes of the television series Ozark, Legion,
1:29.5	The Umbrella Academy, and The Terminal List, and episodes of the miniseries Catch-22 and Inventing Anna.
1:38.5	Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles,
1:42.7	Curis spoke with director Philip Nois about filming Lee.
1:46.8	Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.
1:54.8	Good evening. Good evening, everyone.
2:19.3	Congratulations on the film. Thank you. Beautiful. I think at one point, Audrey Withers, the editor of Vogue, says when she's looking at Lee's photographs, only a woman could have taken these. And I would say only a woman could have made this story in the way that you did.
2:23.8	Thank you, Philip.
2:32.8	So where does it all begin for you, this adventure in the screen, with the screen?
2:38.6	I mean, you've directed, you've been a cinematographer, you're directing a series of commercials at the moment, you've directed television, movies, but where did it start?
2:45.0	Where to start?
2:47.0	I think, you know, for me, what was really important about this film was not only that I had a connection to Lee Miller, very early on when I encountered photography when I was in university and just I took a photography class at the Royal School Design and just fell in love with looking through the viewfinder. But I was actually interested
	...

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