You might know Grant Singer as the director behind many memorable music videos for artists including Sky Ferreira, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, and Lorde. But recently, Singer has been engaged in some serious filmmaking. Last year, Netflix released his feature film debut Reptile, starring Benicio del Toro as a detective trying to solve the murder of a young real estate agent.
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For his Treat, Singer cites Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic Vertigo as life changing. Singer sees the film as a narrative about confronting and recreating trauma. He acknowledges its themes of obsession while also emphasizing the film’s meditative quality. Singer says the score along with the film’s nuanced performances reveals additional layers upon multiple viewings. Singer also highlights how Hitchcock masterfully creates a sense of ambiguity and intrigue that left him questioning its characters' motives and emotions.
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The film that changed my life is a film called Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock.
This film, to me, is about the recreation of trauma to overcome one's past. Famously, people talk about it being about obsession, which certainly it is. I've heard Scorsese talk about this film, specifically about the serenity of the movie. The sequences with Jimmy Stewart following Kim Novak through the streets of San Francisco. There's something so meditative about those scenes. And certainly, I think it lives in a genre of its own. I remember the first five [or] ten times I watched Vertigo, there'd be scenes I'm like, 'Huh? That's in the movie?' I was completely hypnotized by the filmmaking that I forgot what it is I was seeing. It's one of the few films that's done that for me.
Bernard Herrmann's score for Vertigo is my favorite film score of all time. The film seduces you, the film music seduces you, and they're very much in dialogue with one another. And if you watch the movie, you'll notice that the music dips out for many moments, sometimes five, six, or seven moments but then when it comes back in, it adds this depth to the feeling.
Vertigo - Soundtrack - Full Album (1958)
There's this one moment where Midge asks Jimmy Stewart's character, 'So what are you doing?' And at this point in the story, we are very aware of what he's been doing. He's been following Kim Novak's character and falling in love with her. It's so deep and profound. And he just says 'wandering'. He just throws the line away. And the delivery of that line is so masterful. It's so comedic. It's so dramatic. It's so poignant. It's brilliant.
Midge:painting
In this film, even when I'm aware of what the Kim Novak character is doing, there are still moments where I'm like, 'Is she acting? Or is she really her at this moment? Or is she falling in love with him? Or is this a seduction?' I'm constantly questioning the motives and how Hitchcock was directing these people.
Every time I've rewatched it, I realize I'm always asking myself, 'Why is this my favorite film? Why am I so drawn to this?' And I have to say, I do think part of it [is] being from California and seeing it at a time before I was born, it's accessing a life outside my own, but then also the performances. To me, if film is a magic trick, [then] this is the most beautiful and eloquent one that I've seen.
