The Documentary Art of Filmmaker Michael Rubbo, by D. B. Jones

Abstract

The immediate reception of Michael Rubbo’s early documentaries was eerily similar. He was attacked both for their form and content. The producers at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where all the Canadian National Film Board’s (NFB) films were supposed to be screened, at first rejected the personal narration in Sad Song of Yellow Skin (1970), which they deemed unprofessional and inordinately pacifist. Programmers at CBC refused to screen Waiting for Fidel (1974) as they judged the presence of the filmmaker as self-indulgent and excessively sympathetic to Fidel Castro. The film could subsequently only be released in festivals and art-house circuits.

Keywords

• documentary
• essay film
• observational
• nfb
• rubbo