‘The Death of a Father’ sets out to explore the way in which women are rendered silent, absent or marginal within a male-centred language system. As the film's own publicity puts it – 'they say the language you speak is made up of words that are killing you'.

The film opens on a banquet at which women remember their literary predecessors. Quoting from Simone de Beauvoir, Virgi­nia Woolf and Marguerite Duras, they pose immediately the question of the position of women vis-a-vis language and culture.

The scene then changes to a a decaying cinema, where the gloomily lit figures of an usherette, an ice cream sales girl, and an all-male audience watch impassively as a dance is performed in front of the empty screen; it becomes clear that it is not only women writers but also women film directors that have been silenced, as the soundtrack recalls what a hall of fame there actually is. We learn that, 'there is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man and there is no reason why she cannot master every technicality of the art'. (Alice Guy in 1913) 

‘The Death of a Father’ is intended to be used within critical discussions around notions of history, culture and pleasure as well as in women's and film studies. 

In common with such films as Sally Potter's ‘Thriller’ and ‘The Gold Diggers’, and Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen's ‘Amy’ and ‘Penthesilea’, this film is primarily concerned with the problem of female subjectivity – the problem of women finding a voice and a position from which to speak.

– Sylvia Paskin, Monthly Film Bulletin

Jane Harris' ‘The Death of a Father – A Conspiracy of Silence’ takes feminist film theory in its teeth and shakes it into dazzling shape… 

– M A Guyton, The Independent

Description source: Circles catalogue (1987). Edited by Jenny Holland and Jane Harris.