A History of British Film
Early British Comedy
Early Hitchcock
Introduction to Humphrey Jennings
Humphrey Jennings and Third Cinema
The Stars Look Down / The Proud Valley – Conflict and Unity
The Renaissance of the 1980s
Film On Four

Dysfunctional Families

The Fenwicks are not the only family to be represented as conflicting and dysfunctional in The Stars Look Down. The Sunley family is too. Jenny’s father is absent and her mother implies that she regrets marrying him when she says ‘and I ended up marrying your father’. Jenny’s mother encourages her to marry and leave the household. On the occasion that we meet Mrs Sunley, she is shouting at her daughter, she sides with Joe against Jenny and tells him ‘she’s a bad heartless girl’. There is certainly conflict in this family.

Joe’s family is not shown to be united either. Early in the film ‘Slogger’ Gowlan remarks that Joe picks his pockets when he is drunk. Joe is certainly too busy stealing money to defend his father when he is arrested in the butcher’s shop. Once he becomes successful Joe is also very unwilling to help his father financially, he is reluctant even to visit Slogger. Family conflict is not shown to be restricted by class either. When we are privy to Barras’ son’s views we discover that he is reluctant to fulfil his father’s wish that he should go into mining.