According to Gallup polls, for three years running, more people say that they deeply distrust the media than people who say that they trust it a lot. Confidence in mainstream media and in journalists is on the skids.

So perhaps this is a good moment to release a film about a forgotten news photographer who courageously recorded some of the most appalling scenes of World War II.

Lee is a biopic about Lee Miller, a war correspondent for Vogue magazine who covered events such as the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau. Until her son published her biography, she had been largely forgotten. But the book and film revive her reputation as a great photographer. Kate Winslet both produced the film and starred in it. She does a magnificent job.

Lee began her career as a fashion model in New York in the flapper age but eventually decided that life was better on the other side of the camera. Hers was a hectic, hedonistic life, with lots of lovers and partying. She was part of the avant-garde art scene in the US and UK as well. Unsurprisingly, the film of her life is R-rated for “disturbing images, language and nudity.”

For her work as a war photographer, she displayed determination, resilience, courage, artfulness, compassion and a feminine touch. It seems that she was deeply scarred by the horrors of combat and the concentration camps. After the War she suffered severe depression and alcoholism.

The film briefly explores how Lee's psyche was wounded after being raped as a child. Perhaps her passion for excess was a way of coping with this trauma. In an interview Miller did with Vogue magazine, she recalls moments from her younger years and says: “although I looked like an angel, I really was a fiend.”

At a time where journalists, especially in the mainstream media, are often suspected of being hucksters of fake news, Lee Miller’s life is a reminder of what a passionate, courageous, journalist can do.