Brassed Off
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mark Herman |
| Produced by | Steve Abbott |
| Written by | Mark Herman |
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| Music by | Trevor Jones |
| Cinematography | Andy Collins |
| Edited by | Michael Ellis |
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107 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £2.8 million |
| Box office | £3 million |
Brassed Off is a 1996 British-American comedy-drama film written and directed by Mark Herman and starring Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor.
The film is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure of their pit. The soundtrack for the film was provided by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and the plot is based on Grimethorpe's own struggles against pit closures. It is generally very positively received for its role in promoting brass bands and their music. Parts of the film make reference to the huge increase in suicides that resulted from the end of the coal industry in Britain, and the struggle to retain hope in the circumstances.
In the United States the film was promoted simply as a romantic comedy involving McGregor and Fitzgerald's characters.
The film is set ten years after the year-long strike in 1984–85 by the National Union of Mineworkers in Britain. Before the privatisation of British Coal, a wave of pit closures took place. In contrast to the militancy of 1984–85, the miners put up little resistance. Many had been in debt ever since the long strike, and were prepared to take redundancy money whilst it was on offer. The National Coal Board arranged private ballots between closing a pit immediately with compulsory redundancies (which were relatively generous) or taking a pit to a review procedure to determine whether a profit could be made in the private sector (where any redundancy money would have probably been much lower). Although miners had a tradition of fighting for their jobs, the risk of losing the redundancy money on offer by going forwards to privatisation swung the votes in most ballots to be in favour of pit closure and redundancy. The loss of hope, pride and fighting spirit in what were previously proud mining communities was the basis for the idea of being "brassed off".
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Wikipedia