Martha, Ralph Fiennes: Siblings and Comrades : The first-time filmmaker and her famous brother join forces on ‘Onegin,’ a project seven years in the making, based on Pushkin’s 1830 novel.

Talk about a family affair.

Seven years ago, actor Ralph Fiennes told his sister Martha, a fledgling filmmaker, about a book he had read while at drama school: “Eugene Onegin,” the great 1830 verse novel by Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin.

“It was so naive, when I look back at it,” she recalled. “Ralph said, ‘Martha, I’ve read this book. I think it would make a great film.’ So I read it, called him and said, ‘You’re right, it’d be great.’ That’s how it began.”

Back then, in late 1992, the idea that Ralph and Martha Fiennes could get a film off the ground was implausible. True, he was regarded as one of Britain’s brightest young acting prospects, having successfully played leading stage roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company. But he had not yet even been cast in “Schindler’s List,” which would be his first major film. And Martha, a film school graduate one year younger than he, had directed commercials and music videos, but was an unknown.

Still, one Sunday afternoon in 1992 in Martha’s London apartment, the Fiennes siblings sat down and punched a treatment of “Eugene Onegin” into her computer. “I remember thinking it was worth doing, even though it was a major movie we were talking about,” Martha said. “OK, we were only in our 20s, almost no one knew about us, it seemed insane. But why not?” She sweeps an arm around her. “And this is why not.”

“This” refers to the climax of their endeavors--the set of the film they imagined on paper seven years ago. Now simply called “Onegin,” it has settled into these studios west of London after two weeks of shooting winter exterior scenes in the severe cold of St. Petersburg, Russia. Budgeted at about $14 million, it was financed by Rysher Entertainment as the company’s last feature film before the company’s parent, Cox Communications, scaled back operations to focus on TV. Seven Arts Films bought the rights and made a deal with Samuel Goldwyn Films to handle U.S. distribution. After a successful run in Europe (Fiennes was nominated for a European Film Award), it opens in L.A. on Friday.

Martha Fiennes is making her debut as a feature film director. Ralph has a dual role: He is the film’s executive producer, and also stars in the title role as a dashing but jaded and cynical nobleman who has never been deeply involved emotionally. When Onegin meets a beautiful, innocent young Russian woman named Tatyana (Liv Tyler), she falls for him, but he, true to form, spurns her advances. Yet when they reunite in later years, the roles are reversed; she is unattainable and he yearns for her.

The scene indicated by Martha Fiennes is a banquet celebrating Tatyana’s name day. Tyler, with hair spectacularly braided and in a long period gown, greets guests in a receiving line, urging them to wander through the room. But she anxiously awaits Onegin and keeps an eye on the door for his arrival. On another set, production designer Jim Clay has created Tatyana’s house in a leafy, tranquil Russian forest.

“Eugene Onegin” is a classic of world literature but has never been filmed, partly because the novel is such an elusive work. The bare-bones plot summary above does it scant justice; the novel is full of dense allusions and contrasting moods best understood in its original Russian.

“It’s about a lot of things,” mused Ralph Fiennes, dressed in a 19th century Russian aristocrat’s black frock coat, in his dressing room between scenes. “It’s the counterpart between the worlds of Onegin and Tatyana. He’s urban. His world is Moscow and St. Petersburg. She’s country. She represents the pure soul of Russia. He’s sophisticated and cosmopolitan, he’s been influenced by Western Europe.

“It’s such a complex work. I’ve been reading it and rereading it, and talking to so many people about it. I think I have an imaginative foothold on it, despite my lack of Russian.”

When the St. Petersburg scenes were being shot, Fiennes also found that the shades of meaning in Pushkin’s novel and the motivations of its leading characters cause heated arguments among Russians even today.

“People talk about it as if they were discussing the latest acts of politicians,” he said. “Russians argue about all this endlessly, and there’s so much literature on the subject of ‘Onegin’ by other Russian writers.”

Tiny Details, in the Novel and in Siblings’ Behavior

There’s also controversy over which English translation has an edge. One school of literary critics praises the version by British diplomat and poet Charles Johnston, who boldly translated Pushkin’s novel into verse. Others admire the version by novelist Vladimir Nabokov (author of “Lolita”), who dispensed with verse but stayed closer to Pushkin’s text.

“We used Nabokov as a starting point,” Ralph Fiennes said. “Because he doesn’t attempt to rhyme, he’s more accurate. The detail of Pushkin comes through.”

The first drafts of the script were written by Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian-born critic and cultural commentator based in London. Then Peter Ettedgui, a young writer Martha Fiennes knew, was brought in to work on the structure of the screenplay.

“We wanted simple, economic dialogue, not pastiche period,” Ralph said. “It needed a loose formality, but not so colloquial and modern that it was jarring. Visually we were never short of ideas, because there are so many wonderful images in Pushkin: girls singing as they pick berries, a sleigh ride in the snow, Tatyana’s face pressed against a window. He’s full of tiny details which have in one way or another fed into the screenplay.”

He talked about this in his usual manner: eyes cast downward, earnestly trying to capture exactly the right word or phrase. Ralph Fiennes is nothing if not serious-minded. But it is uncanny how Martha’s speech patterns and earnest demeanor resemble her brother’s.

“I feel we’ve been nursing this along for . . . years,” she said intensely, brows furrowed. “It’s a long time, there are no promises or certainty, and it’s a difficult thing to direct your first movie.

“And with this piece of work particularly, transcending the medium in which it’s so brilliantly constructed is not an easy process. We’ve taken many years to feel better and better about our script.”

Although this is her first feature film, Martha Fiennes seems determined not to be intimidated by Pushkin’s reputation: “There’s a great skill in translating literary form to the medium of film, where the image and the sound can tell you things in an extraordinarily rich way. My feeling is that often doesn’t happen, especially when it’s a film of literary work. People tiptoe around it.”

So what’s it like, directing her famous brother? “Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “we have other siblings, and I’ve worked with the others. It seems normal in our family to work creatively with each other--it’s second nature. So it’s great. Ralph and I have a direct communication. I can understand what he means very quickly and, I think, vice versa. I have a framework of knowing him since birth.”

Ralph found much the same to say about his sister: “She has two brothers who are actors, so she’s close to that world. Her antennae for how to deal with creative people are strong.” Although it’s her first feature, “within two weeks she found a completely natural, intelligent director’s ability to work with different actors differently. She’s alert to their needs and anxieties.”

There’s no power struggle between them, either: Ralph and Martha, the two oldest of six children, were raised as equals, according to Ralph: “She doesn’t seem like a younger sister. I’m very close to Martha.”

And how is he coping in his role as executive producer? “Hmm,” Fiennes said, “the nitty-gritty, insurance and number-crunching, I couldn’t do that. My input has been to do with script. And I’ve been involved in general discussions with lawyers and financiers, and with casting too.”

Tyler’s ‘Acute Sense of Emotional Truth’

He is particularly happy with the contribution being made by Liv Tyler: “We tested lots of actresses, but Liv has an acute sense of emotional truth that’s not performed or projected, but just is. That’s what you’d want in your Tatyana.

“She has extraordinarily good instincts. She was taken up by the press, which projected a ‘babe’ image. But that belies what she is. On film, she works brilliantly, better than we thought. It’s an X-factor, an ‘is-ness,’ which stars like [Audrey] Hepburn or [Ingrid] Bergman have.”

Tyler appeared to be equally happy around the Fiennes siblings: “I feel like a dumb American,” she joked, alluding to their serious, bookish manner. “They’re so smart. I don’t know much about theater, which is where Ralph comes from.

“But I’d never worked with a female director before, and I love Martha to pieces. I have a terrific connection with her. And Ralph’s very giving. He’s completely there; he’s only happy when he’s acting.

He loves to try things in scenes. We had a scene together, and before we did it, he took me off alone for two hours and we rehearsed it. It really helped to have that opportunity.”

Asked about the commercial prospects of a film like “Onegin,” both Martha and Ralph are guardedly optimistic.

“These are great themes!” Martha exclaimed. “I like the irony of human behavior, the way Tatyana pines for Onegin, then how he longs for her. It’s a dig at human nature. Onegin’s love is like a psychosomatic illness. It’s a great subject, the brain disorder of love, and how rooted and desperate and painful it is.”

“When people say, ‘Yeah, but will anyone go and see it?’ something inside me seizes up,” Ralph admitted. “Maybe I’m part of a minority, but I’d go and see it. I do think there’s an audience who are interested in the cinema of human emotions and human frailty. Even if a story is set in a time which is not our own, the truth can still be resonant.

“So, yes, we’d hope there would be an audience.”