The “Titanic” legend will accept a “Golden Icon Award” at the Zurich Film Festival – not for her role in “Lee”, but for her life’s work as an actress and businesswoman.
Author: Georges Wyrsch
06.10.2024, 02:07
More than 25 years have passed since “Titanic”. It’s been 15 years since Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her role in the literary adaptation “The Reader.” Since then, her career has been at a high level: veterans like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen applied for her, and she alternates appearances in blockbusters (“Divergent,” “Avatar”) with more personal projects.
Legend: Her (and his) breakthrough: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio impress together in “Titanic”. IMAGO/Everett Collection
Kate Winslet has also successfully entered the world of streaming series: in the crime series “Mare of Easttown” she impressed as a stricken policewoman, while she pulled out completely different stops in the darkly humorous political satire “The Regime”, where she played the role of Chancellor a fictitious Central European state let her comic streak shine.
Both series aired on HBO, and Winslet served as her own producer on both.
“Lee”: Winslet’s passion project
Winslet is now coming to the Zurich Film Festival again with a feature film: “Lee” is the elaborate film biography of the American surrealist, war photographer and model Lee Miller (1907 to 1977). Winslet herself took on this project; she hired director Ellen Kuras and actively participated in casting the supporting roles.
1 / 2 Legend: A well-known subject: The real Lee Miller in Hitler’s bathtub… KEYSTONE/AP Photo/Lee Miller Archive/Str
2 / 2 Legend: … and Kate Winslet’s Lee Miller in the reenacted scene in the film. Ascot Elite Entertainment Group
For Winslet, “Lee” is another opportunity to pull off a show of strength: she plays Lee at a very young and very old age. Her character smokes, drinks, shows herself naked, speaks French, makes her way in a man’s world and, during the Second World War, moves on her own to areas where she looks the horror unafraid – but disgusted – in the face.
Not a perfect film
“Lee” has a few fundamental problems as a feature film, with one thing running through the war scenes: the main character is programmatically turned into a feminist heroine, and her condition takes up disproportionately more space in the narrative than the fate of the rushing nurses and the dying soldiers .
Legend: Shines as a war reporter: Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) documents the horror. Ascot Elite Entertainment Group
“Lee” is Kate Winslet’s film. She plays her role resolutely and changeably, she sparkles with energy in her youth, she grits her teeth in the theaters of war and sighs in old age, visibly disillusioned. Broadly speaking, this is an all-inclusive performance that says more about Kate Winslet’s understanding of acting than about the character she is playing.
A price for sure
It remains to be seen whether Kate Winslet expects another Oscar nomination from this courageous project – it would at least not be unusual for the Academy to appreciate such an expressive performance. Regardless of whether “Lee” does justice to the photojournalist he portrays, what Winslet brings out of herself is impressive.
The ZFF was also impressed – traditionally an event that selects stars who are positioning themselves for the Oscars next March. Winslet is therefore certain to receive the “Golden Icon Award” in Zurich on October 7th – of course not for this role, but for her previous and future life’s work – as an actress and businesswoman.
Cinema release on October 17th.
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