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Ralph:
Violet Farr is Irish. She is married to her husband, the ineffectual Cecil,
a repressed homosexual, and in a moment of joyless union they conceive a son
who is called Lumsden. But they are unable to show him any kind of love.
He becomes a ne'er-do-well and fathers himself an illegitimate child,
Spencer. And when this severely traumatized boy is dumped on Violet, his
grandmother, he then becomes the focus for all the despair and
disappointment that her son has loaded upon her.
TG:
In the novel the mother, Violet, considers her son dishonest, sexually
deviant, a parasite, and a liar. And she thinks that he was cursed the
night that she gave birth to him. Ralph Fiennes can I ask you to read an
excerpt from your mother's book? And the scene I've chosen is a scene in
which the son, the son who she is so repelled by...
RF:
Lumsden.
TG:
Yeah. Lumsden awakens from a dream, and he's dreaming about a stag -- I
just mentioned that because there's a reference to a stag in the reading -
and he finds his mother at the foot of his bed staring at him. Could you
read the scene for us?
RF:
(Ralph proceeds to read a part about Lumsden and Violet and their encounter
in Lumsden's room.)
TG:
That's Ralph Fiennes reading a passage from his late mother's last novel,
Blood Ties. Well here's a question to Ralph and Joe Fiennes. Was it odd
for you to read your mother's novel about such a really disastrous
mother/son relationship?
Joseph Fiennes:
Um...no. We obviously had an extraordinary, compassionate upbringing and,
um, we were stimulated constantly by, um, a creative environment. And maybe
it wasn't so much so for my mother. I think she was brought up in a
different environment and a possibly lack of expression and love towards the
children in her family, and that may be, I don't know informs the book,
um.......
RF:
Nothing about this relationship that I've just read is a reflection on
our relationship, Sophie, or Joseph, or Martha, or Jacob, or our adopted
brother Mick. We were loved intensely by my mother and our father.
This...this relationship that I've read to you is much more, I think,
inspired by, um, not anything specifically in her life, but you must know
that her own childhood was very unhappy. Violet is not my mother's mother.
Not for a second. And nothing in this book is veiled autobiography, but she
was very astute, my mother, at observing parent/child dysfunctional or
mutual rejection, dysfunctional relationships.
TG:
I'm wondering when your mother was sick and she was, I think, diagnosed with
cancer in '86, and died in '93, if there was times when she was sick and you
really wanted to be with her, but you were torn between commitments to films
and being with your mother. I think there are times for a lot of people
when it's very difficult to figure out just in the course of a long distance
how much time you can spend at home and how much time you must spend.......
RF:
Well you see, there are three of us in the studio now, and there are
actually 6 children, 7 if you include our adopted brother Mick, which we do
include, and she definitely considered him as one of her 7 children. Um,
and there was a huge support system for my mother when she was diagnosed as
having cancer. Sophie maybe you could talk a bit about it?
Sophie Fiennes:
Yea, I mean, I think that Jini was a woman who was fascinated by being a
mother, and she was compelled to be a mother, and she took it on board in a
very full on way. But she was also, she had a very strong spiritual
dimension to her, and in fact when she was diagnosed terminally ill she
actually chose to spend a lot of time by herself and I think that was a very
important choice that she made. And we all had to respect that which was
actually quite difficult, but at the same time we knew that she was making a
very conscious choice and the pilgrimage is actually an extension of that
kind of search that she felt she had to make for herself, within herself,
that was sort of beyond even the love and compassion and support of the
family. And I think that that's something that is possibly an interesting
choice that she made.
TG:
The pilgrimage you refer to is a pilgrimage that she took toward the end of
her life. It was a religious pilgrimage. She had been a Catholic but said
that she no longer really practiced. What do you think that she was looking
for on this pilgrimage? And she did write a non-fiction book about the
pilgrimage before she died.
SF:
Yea, she wrote a travel book because she decided when she was ill to make a
pilgrimage because really she was fascinated by ancient places where people
would be, had gone for centuries and she was fascinated by religion and
belief. And she was really a magpie for these things and she had a strong,
she had an excitement about the idea of faith and the idea of what she would
refer to as an illuminous deity and she really went in a search to find her
own relationship to that. And I think there's something that comes through
very strongly in both books which is her connection to nature and the
practicality of life and the naturalness of that sort of practical aspect.
So traveling and being on route and being in the process of a journey is in
a sense a metaphor for the whole phenomenon of life itself. So she really
enjoyed that and I think the book has a lot of humor in it. She comes
through very strongly in On Pilgrimage, personally herself.
TG:
Did your mother have her demons, too, and did you know about them when you
were growing up?
RF:
Yes. Yes, we did. (laughter from all three.)
TG:
What were they and how did they manifest themselves?
SF:
She was certified an incurable hysteric three times before she was 22.
Really because she was just very emotional as a child and also she came
from, this was in a period when mental health was regarded very differently
to how it is regarded now. And she definitely was a highly emotional......
RF:
She was quite volatile, and, you know, she could fly off the handle
unexpectedly....
TG:
Was she ever institutionalized?
RF:
Only when she, briefly, when she...at this time Sophie's talking about, but
I mean, no.
TG:
Uh-uh.
JF:
When she was in her twenties.
RF:
But only, like, one or two nights, or something.
SF:
Yeah.
TG:
It must have been confusing as children to have a mother who was so
mercurial and who's mood could change suddenly.
RF:
Yes, but it was like a surface thing because it never...it never was a
fundamental, um, it wasn't.....we could witness one of her mood changes and
know that it might be uncomfortable, and sometimes even hurtful, but it
didn't actually touch on the fundamental love for us.
JF:
She was very articulate to all the children about these demons because it
was the conflict of bringing up the children, um, and allowing them, and
making us understand and participate in the kind of, the stress of bringing
up a family and trying to write books and paint and fulfill ones own
artistic aspirations. So I think she was articulate and I felt that we were
very much aware of the pressure that she was under, and the silence that she
needed amongst seven children.
TG:
Your mother was a writer, and an amateur painter. Your father
was a photographer. I'm wondering if there......
JF:
Is still.
TG:
IS still a photographer, good. I'm wondering if their work made it easier
for you, Ralph and Joe, and you, Sophie, as a film maker, to imagine
yourselves going into the Arts. You know, becoming performers or film
makers. I think it's SUCH a leap for some people who don't grow up in
families or neighborhoods in which there are artists to imagine becoming one
themselves.
RF:
Well I think we were very lucky that my mother was passionate about words,
literature, ideas, the imagination, and she and my father, also talked to
us, discussion and conversation was encouraged. It wasn't even a
self-conscious thing, it just was there, because my mother loved to talk
about ideas, and discuss books, ideas of films, plays, pieces of music, and
she, I remember, she would always come back from an event, if we were too
young to have seen a certain film or gone to a certain concert, she would
come back and say, "We saw the most wonderful concert last night. The
composer was such-and-such. Or we saw an amazing play last night and it was
this kind of play and the story is this." And I think we all were on the
receiving end of this enthusiasm. So, in that sense it, I suppose, it may
be....to choose to follow a career in, what I suppose, we have to call the
Arts, um, didn't seem a big step for us because of the nature of the
environment that Jini gave us.
TG:
Did you get to see much in the way of theatre or movies when you were
growing up?
RF:
YES! Yes. I think, um, I can remember being taken to see Laurence
Olivier's Henry VI when I was about 5.
(laughter from all with Sophie being the loudest)
TG:
What did you make of it at the age of 5?
RF:
I loved the music by Sir William Walton. I loved the battle scenes.
TG:
Uh huh.
(Joe laughs)
RF:
It was a great film. I mean it, it's got such great cinematic energy that,
I think, that an alert 5 year old can respond to it. It's such a brilliant
piece of film-making. It's a proof that Shakespeare needn't be the stuff of
A-level exams. It's alive. It's story-telling. It's visual.
TG:
What else made a big impression on you as kids?
SF:
Well, now I was just thinking of the, I remember being taken to Waiting For
Godot when I was 9. Because she was a passionate Samuel Beckett fan.
TG:
Another children's favorite. (laughing)
(Joe laughs.)
SF:
Yea, exactly. I love Lucky. I thought Lucky was a brilliant character.
JF:
It is. It's great vaudeville. It's wonderful. Broad comedy.
SF:
So, um, yeah....no, I think, definitely her enthusiasm for, um, for creative
work was something that was very inspiring for us to be a part of. And it
definitely conveyed....
TG:
With seven kids in the house did you get into a "Let's Put On a Show" type
of thing?
SF:
Well, I'll, uh....I'm going to interject here because I remember as a, sort
of, 5 year old being subjected to a 7-hour long performance of...
JF:
No interval!
SF:
Of a Pollocks theatre production...
RF:
It's a toy theatre.
SF:
Which is a toy theatre, like a sort of proscenium stage, that was produced,
directed, and EVERY single part played by Ralph. And I think there was
Treasure Island, and, what was the other one?....The Corsican Twins, was
it?...
RF:
The Corsican Brothers, Jack the Giant Killer, Cinderella.....
JF:
You mustn't get him on to this....(laughter)....really, you should move on
very swiftly.....
SF:
It was a brilliant theatre, because what he'd done was, he'd made little
footlights in tiny matchboxes. So, there were actually footlights at the
bottom of the theatre, and the cut out characters, um, which were on,
attached to little wire, um, poles that got moved in and out in front of the
proscenium. It was, it was brilliant....
RF:
I've still got it. I'm doing a show next week.
(laughter)
TG:
How long is it going to be?
SF:
Would you like to come on the road...
RF:
Eight, eight hours.
JF:
You see, he's not really plugging Blood Ties.
TG:
Joe, you uh, you have a twin brother. Is he an identical or a fraternal
twin?
JF:
Fraternal. Um, very, very different. Um, uh....he's a bit taller, blue
eyes, blonde hair.
(laughter from the siblings)
TG:
Why's everybody laughing?
JF:
Describing his, uh....he's sort of the Aryan-looking one. Um, yeah....Jake
went in a very different way and moved into wildlife......was compelled and,
um...fascinated by wildlife at an early age.
RF:
Tell the story of Adam and Eve.
JF:
Well there was....(laughs).....I think as twins, um, uh, there was....it
wasn't too bad for us (laughs)....oh God, okay....um, we were labeled as the
twins although encouraged very much to be individual. But obviously when
you're young and together, and paired off at school, you are constantly
fighting for, to find your individualism. I remember a time in Ireland,
when we had moved there at the age of 4, I think we were camping with my
mother and father, and, um, Jini told us, it was an early, wonderful,
beautiful, misty morning, and Jini told Jake and I to go and wash in the
stream. It didn't really appeal to 4/5 year olds, um, too much. And so
she, in order to invoke us to do this she said we should play out the roles
of Adam and Eve, and we took the bait, and thought this was rather glorious
and wonderful, so we ran off bounding down through the, down the meadow to
the stream, but only moments later there was a God almighty row, and a
terrible fight broke out, and it seemed that there was some confusion, or an
issue rather with the casting because neither of us wanted to play Eve.
And, I guess that was the first moment in our lives when we discovered how
to fight for our individualism.
TG:
And for the best parts.
JF:
Absolutely. I think I should've taken up the challenge really. It might've
opened up my range at an early age.
RF:
There's still time.
TG:
So, who were you finally?
JF:
Aah....well, I'm now going to try and pursue any roles...female roles like
Eve.
TG:
Well, this could've been good preparation for SiL when, you know, all the
women's parts went to men, yea, I think that's what your mother had in mind.
JF:
It's a great British tradition....cross-dressing.
TG:
That's right. Well, Joseph Fiennes did get to cross-dress for a scene in
SiL in which his character, William Shakespeare, decides to accompany his
lover, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, to a gathering without the knowledge of
her fiance, played by Colin Firth.
(Then you hear the scene where Wessex comes to escort Viola, and Will comes out as the "country cousin".)
TG:
Ralph you were the first in the family to get
into film. It sounds like you knew pretty young that you wanted to be in
the actor?
RF:
Well, a mother who loved theatre, loved performance, and had herself, talked
to us about having seen the likes of ?????, John Gielgud, Paul Scofield,
Richard Burton, on stage, and the passion ?? that she discussed, or told me
the memories of seeing these actors, I really listened. It really excited
me. And I know that wanting to be an actor was definitely rooted in her
shared passion for the theatre.
TG:
Ralph, can I ask what her reaction was when you told her that you were going
to play a Nazi in Schindler's List and work with Spielberg?
RF:
She read the script and she thought that it was a brilliant script and that
the character I was about to play was a tragic character really, um, uh, I
think she thought that Steve Zaiillian's writing of this part was
particularly rounded and perceptive, and sad, actually....so I think that,
she was, her reaction was that it was a, that the script over all was, was
brilliant and that the part was a wonderful opportunity for any actor.
TG:
Why don't I play a scene from Schindler's List. This is a scene in which,
um, Ralph Fiennes, you know, as a Nazi is speaking to a young, attractive
Jewish woman to whom he realizes he is very attracted, and he starts
speaking to her in a way that is surprising considering he's a Nazi.
(Then you hear the scene in Schindler's List when Amon Goeth is in the cellar - the maid's room - and talks about wanting to touch her.)
TG:
That's Ralph Fiennes from Schindler's List, and after that comparatively
sensitive moment he blames the young Jewish woman for trying to seduce him
because he's so horrified that he's attracted to a Jew, he's so upset by the
thought of it that just as he's about to tenderly touch her he instead
erupts into a fit of anger and starts violently beating her up. Did your
mother have any reaction to seeing that scene or to seeing this kind
of.....to see you play such a really violent and unempathetic personality?
RF:
Well, I can't remember exactly what she said. She was very ill at that time
and she had to be taken in a wheelchair to the screening. And she found it
very hard to speak because the breath, her lungs were very badly affected by
the cancer. So, I can only remember her just being full of praise, and
being very effected actually by the whole film, as so many people were. Um,
I think that's what's interesting in Blood Ties....
TG:
This is her novel.
RF:
Yeah. In Blood Ties, what she understands is that violence in somebody,
somebody can behave, there is the potential for....for....I use the word
warily, but there is the potential for redemption, and in the character of
Spencer the reader meets a young boy totally rejected, almost from the
moment of his birth, who could be very violent, and she never.....you know,
he's definitely....he cuts off, he cuts off from people. He doesn't
communicate. He becomes isolated and detached. You know, all his feelings
are dead, but what is, what ex....I find moving about the book, you are led,
the reader is led into understanding how this all came about. And.....and
also then witnessing the potential for....for someone to change. And I want
just to read you the very beginning of (On) Pilgrimage....because she
touches on this in the first two paragraphs. It starts off.....it's not
long......
(Then he reads that lovely "poor cancer" part about it being a constellation.)
TG:
In the studio now we have three members of the Fiennes family, all here to
speak on their late mother's behalf, and I'm wondering if her sickness
brought you closer together, or perhaps you were already very close.
JF:
Already very close, I think, um.......
SF:
Yeah, we're very close in age and, of course, it brings, I think, it did
bring us together in a way, in a particular way, I think.
TG:
Uh huh. Well I want to thank you all very much for speaking with us about
your mother. Appreciate it.
RF:
Thank you.
JF:
You're welcome.
SF:
Thank you.
RF:
Thank you very much.
TG:
Ralph, Joseph, and Sophie Fiennes. Their mother's final novel is called
Blood Ties. It's published under her pen name, Jennifer Lash.
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on August 23, 1999
EL STEPHO