The Singers (dir. Sam Davis)
By: Adam Freed
In the simplest of places and amongst the least likely of company, the core of humanity is laid bare for all to witness. The interior of the smoke-stained, beer and a shot barroom is unassuming but well attended. Dollar bills stapled to the ceiling mark a generation or more of blue collar customers who have left behind their names in permanent fashion. The deep lines on the faces of the bar’s patrons, mostly aged and weary, are captured in elaborate detail under the direction of Sam Davis’ majestically crafted single-room short film The Singers. Davis instills his diminutive powerhouse with a necessary sense of uncomfortable closeness by shooting in such tight proximity. As expected, the room is full of working class men, white, black, grizzled and unkept. There is no hierarchy or social economy other than one man’s willingness to share a war story, or exhale the frustrations of the day. Based on a short story of the same name by Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, The Singers establishes a sense of rude equality insomuch as everyone in frame suffers from the same form of economic despair.
The Singers patiently establishes its working class environment, a setting that feels essential to the story set to unfold. One can almost smell the beer-soaked floor and the ringlets of tobacco smoke as they drift weightlessly toward the bar’s aged ceiling. Upon that ceiling, adorned with the aforementioned dollar bills, there is the single face of Benjamin Franklin, left by a patron years ago, presumably in a fleeting moment of altruism. It is decided amongst the mildly intoxicated and downtrodden that the one hundred dollar bill should be awarded to the individual who is deemed the best singer in the bar. A simple premise amongst a collection of blue-collar men provides an inspiring and insightful result. Not only does The Singers offer a lasting ray of hope for humanity, but a stern admonishment for those who would levy judgement prior to walking in another man’s shoes. A simple story told in a simple environment by a wonderfully thoughtful filmmaker has resulted in a short film that feels both essential and permanent.
Target Score 10/10 - There is a technical excellence present in the work of director Sam Davis’ short film The Singers. The result of Davis’ meticulous approach to establishing an imperfect world is a film that proves to be an unexpected and emotionally resonant sledgehammer.
The Singers is included in Movie Archer's coverage of the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.