The Mutiny on the Potemkin (1905) Online

I write this review of this rarely seen short on the same day I read that one of the vaults at the Bologna Film Archives went up in flames a month ago. My fellow fans of old movies are talking down the impact: "It was only a minor number," wrote one well-hoping person. "..... Luckily, they are not the most rare and precious of the collection."

Whistling in the dark, I call it. You could go your entire life without knowing this three-minute short, shot by the poorly-remembered F.A. Dobson, of some Russian sailors talking, one being shot by an officer, then the sailors mobbing the officers. What does it mean? Have you ever heard of the Russian Revolution of 1905? Sergei Eisenstein? THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN?

Ah! The last two stir your memory because you're a movie buff. Can you understand why that movie was important in terms of the worldwide furor of 1905, that inspired a movie half a world away? Could you imagine it if one were gone or both were gone or if it all were gone?

When we have no memory of the past, then what are we? Movies are part of that memory. When they burn, and our memory goes with them, what do we become?