Richard Loncraine is at his most persuasive directing actors in heightened circumstances. We value his handling of ensembles, with a reservation about the commercial polish that can make his images too insistent.
Fi1m perspective
In Band of Brothers (2001), we are asked to spend time with the men of Easy Company, and the drama makes that time worthwhile. We were moved by its patient attention to them, with Damian Lewis providing the steady centre of the ensemble. Loncraine directed one of the ten episodes, an important limit on how much of this achievement we can claim for him. Still, the series offers a persuasive example of the ensemble work that suits him.
His feature debut, Flame (1975), followed BBC documentaries and extensive work in commercials. The move towards higher-profile projects came after Richard III (1995), which he directed and co-wrote with Ian McKellen, placing Shakespeare in a fascist Britain of the 1930s. It is a forceful way of making an old play look unfamiliar, and a useful setting for his work with actors. This is also where his commercial instincts can become a distraction, when the visual choices press too hard.
He directed the television film The Gathering Storm (2002), then returned to cinema with the romantic comedy Wimbledon (2004); later came the ensemble comedy-drama Finding Your Feet (2017). That movement between television and cinema, and between genres, makes him difficult to judge by visual habits alone. He has acknowledged that romantic comedy was harder than he expected, which is a sensible place to start with it. We would rather have that admission than the assumption that lighter material takes less care.
Band of Brothers also supplies a useful caution: the action and music occasionally overstate what the patient drama has already made clear. We do not need quite so much insistence once the men have our attention. That reservation does little to diminish a series whose ten episodes earn their length, but it helps explain why we value Loncraine’s work with ensembles more than a conspicuous visual flourish. Try Richard III next if Shakespeare in unfamiliar surroundings appeals.
Biography
Richard Loncraine is a British film and television director. He was born on 20 October 1946 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
He studied sculpture at the Central School of Art and attended the Royal College of Art Film School. Loncraine received early training in the BBC features department, where he directed items for Tomorrow's World, and later worked in commercials before moving into feature films and television.
His credits include the films Richard III (1995, also co-writer), Wimbledon (2004), Firewall (2006), My One and Only (2009), 5 Flights Up (2014) and Finding Your Feet (2017), and the television productions Band of Brothers (2001) and The Gathering Storm (2002). He won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival for Richard III and shared a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special for Band of Brothers in 2002.
