Stanley Kubrick, the 1974 Finance Act, and the crisis of the British film industry: a case study of access, power and privilege in British media and politics

FENWICK, James (2023). Stanley Kubrick, the 1974 Finance Act, and the crisis of the British film industry: a case study of access, power and privilege in British media and politics. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

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Abstract

Between 1975 and 1977, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick secretly campaigned to overturn the new tax provisions of the Labour government’s 1974 Finance Act. His aim was to develop a crisis narrative in which the legislation that affected the amount of earnings foreign residents would pay tax on in the UK was deemed directly responsible for the imminent and absolute collapse of the British film industry. Drawing on archival sources from the Stanley Kubrick Archive, the Harold Wilson Papers, and The National Archives, the article reconstructs Kubrick’s actions during this period to reveal how he planted stories in the press, lobbied MPs, ministers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Prime Minister, manipulated trade union officials, and secretly wrote press releases and campaign letters under the name of the general secretary of the ACTT, Alan Sapper. The archival case study widens understanding of the narrative of crisis pertaining to the British film industry in the 1970s and how this was exacerbated and exploited by powerful and wealthy individuals like Kubrick for personal gain. The article also contributes to the broader topics of access, power, and privilege in British society and how the rich subvert and undermine democracy, thereby aggravating structural inequalities, inequalities that have only deepened since Kubrick’s political interventions and machinations.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1902 Film, Television and Digital Media; 2001 Communication and Media Studies; 2103 Historical Studies; Communication & Media Studies; 3605 Screen and digital media; 4303 Historical studies; 4701 Communication and media studies
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2023.2256637
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	31 Aug 2023 11:06
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 11:17
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/32329

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