American Shoeshine

Sparky Greene's Oscar nominated short documentary "American Shoeshine" is a fascinating and curious look back at the shoeshine profession and its importance in the American culture, especially for immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, and also for the African-American community during the post-WWII.

Greene follows several professionals who share about their working routine, family life and what they hope to achieve through educating their sons, some of them who want to follow their dad's footsteps but it's obvious that the parents don't want that, they want their kids to become more successful cause they know how hard it is to spend countless hours shining shoes for a dime.

A later portion of the film follows the rag popping, with the works singing and dancing as they perform their job, an old tradition that showed the artistic skills of those men and how they create songs and tell stories through music, displaying many talents all at once. It's all about old traditions that seemed to be fading away back in the mid-1970's, and those hard working guys were trying their best to preserve it all.

And through all of those testimonies and movements the story of United States through the 20th century is told in a unusual but interesting manner, with joys and sorrows, but always with a great sense of honest and humbleness. 9/10.