Response #9

The Battle of Orgreave was an intriguing documentary about the re-enactment of a battle in 1984/85 between miners and policemen over worker’s rights and compensation. Many of the actors consisted of actual miners from the strike. Throughout the documentary, they gave their own personal accounts of their own experiences. This battle was a very historic event filled with mixed feelings from both sides. Some of the actors got swept up into the acting and got a little too aggressive. It must have been hard for them to come back and have all these emotions brought back into them that occurred about 20 years ago. I thought it was great that we got a perspective of people who were actually part of the event rather than historians who just studied the event. It amazed me at how many people were actually willing to take part in this art video knowing already how difficult it was going through it once in real life. One miner mentioned that they weren’t here to heal wounds but to confront it and to not be ashamed of what happened. The actual shoot used what looked like to be exact replicas of the clothes and weapons used. I enjoy these types of re-enactments that we see on the history channel because it allows people of future generations to relive past events, especially those that have significant meaning such as this battle. I liked how we got an inside look at the strategies that came into play and what both the police and miners were thinking. It’s weird how a re-enactment can seem so real and with them showing glimpses of actual photos from the fight, it made it that more believable. I think that this worked served its purpose in getting the entire story out to the public, contrary to what had been publicized in the newspapers and the media.