Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub - Needcompany

Lee Miller. (War) photographer and journalist, top model, cover girl, and alcoholic. Abused, reviled, adored, and thrown away. And then there is that one photo: ‘Lee in Hitler's bathtub’. What possessed Lee to enter Hitler's apartment and cleanse herself in the devil's bathtub? The performance begins at the moment she stands in front of Hitler's bathtub in her stinking clothes, where the corpse smells of Dachau were still suffocated. In a stream of thoughts, Lee Miller takes the spectator along in her approach to photography, in her view on her own body and beauty that were so often viewed as objects. She describes war images she photographed, her battle with the horror and the craftsmanship, in search of beauty or authenticity, absurd thoughts about Hitler and his wife Eva Braun, about her Parisian connections with the avant-garde artists, her relationship with Man Ray, the abuse that happened to her, the painful treatment, Lee’s father who photographed her from an early age, and the nightmares that haunted her. Lee Miller in Hitler’s bathtub is not a biographical portrait of Lee Miller, but uses a number of moments from the life of Lee Miller to make a portrait of a woman in the shadow of so many famous and infamous men. Lee Miller in Hitlers Badkuip is neither a historical nor a biographical portrait of artist Lee Miller and must be seen as fiction in which factual historical events are combined with fictional elements. The interpretation of the character Lee Miller is based on artistic choices and the vision of Jan Lauwers and can differ from historical documentation or biographies. Some dialogues, situations, and interactions are made up. Not officially recognized by the Lee Miller Archives.