Eric Laneuville puts performers first without leaving the camera idle. We value his feel for ensembles and his preference for simple, honest playing, though the strengths of a sprawling series such as Lost cannot all be credited to one director.
Fi1m perspective
Laneuville’s camera will look up from the floor or peer around a corner to find a character. He favours fluid movement, but his approach to performers is simple and discreet. We value that combination: the choice of angle gives us something to notice without requiring the actor to underline every feeling. In ensemble television, keeping several people interesting is useful work, particularly when the story is asking us to remember rather more than their names.
St. Elsewhere (1982–88) gave him experience on both sides of the camera: he played Luther Hawkins and began directing the programme in 1984. His collaborators included its executive producer Bruce Paltrow and the actor and mentor Norman Lloyd. That working background helps explain his concern for supporting performers, although having been an actor is no guarantee of knowing how to direct one. The George McKenna Story (1986) extended his directing into a television film, and after St. Elsewhere ended he shifted his focus to directing.
Lost (2004) is the strongest recommendation we can make here, with its ensemble giving the survival story people worth worrying about. We were frightened because those strangers mattered to us, rather than simply serving as possible answers to the mysteries. The performances carry some wayward storytelling, though the repeated postponement of explanations becomes wearing. Laneuville directed five episodes between 2005 and 2008, including ‘The Other 48 Days’; that contribution does not make him responsible for everything the programme gets right or wrong.
His broader work in medical dramas and procedurals depends on efficient pacing and an ability to give emotional scenes their due within an episode. Those are useful strengths for a serial as busy as Lost, but good handling of performers cannot make every narrative delay worthwhile. We would resist treating reliability as a reason to overlook that distinction, or treating a programme’s frustrations as proof that its individual directors have failed. Try Lost for the ensemble, provided a long wait for explanations will not spoil the evening.
Biography
Eric Laneuville is an American television director, producer and actor. Born on 14 July 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana, he began his career as an actor with roles in the film The Omega Man (1971) and the series Room 222 (1970–1973). His best-known acting role was as Luther Hawkins in St. Elsewhere.
He began directing in 1984 with episodes of St. Elsewhere. Laneuville has directed episodes of series including Lost (2005–2008), Prison Break, Grey's Anatomy and The Mentalist. In 1992 he won a Primetime Emmy Award for directing an episode of I'll Fly Away. In 1988 he became the first African-American television director to film in Russia, on an episode of Head of the Class.
