about Entertain Me
Entertain Me (2022, directed by Beek Groot) follows entertainer Revi (Thomas van Luin), who dreams of a life in the spotlight like his Hollywood idols. When the cruise ship on which he works as a bingo show host docks in Amsterdam, he chases that dream one more time. On this journey through Amsterdam however, he discovers that in today's world, there is no place for entertainers like him and he is forced to adjust his definition of success.
The soundtrack for Entertain Me was composed and recorded in the summer of 2022 using techniques examined in Claussen’s masters thesis: Improvisation in Film Music: Collectivizing the Compositional Process. By combining the methods Miles Davis used to score Ascenseur pour l’échafaud with modern production techniques, the soundtrack matches the film’s rough, in-the-moment, almost documentary-like style of storytelling.
Like the film, the album is a journey into Amsterdam’s gritty underground culture with nods to artists which inspired the score, like Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Pharaoh Sanders. All of the tracks featured on the album are the extended versions of the film tracks, featuring sound design by Sam Titshof on the streets of Amsterdam and dialogue between Alex Murphy and Thomas van Luin in the pivotal scene towards the end of the film ("Copernicus / Alex Murphy”). There are also several tracks which did not make it into the final cut of the film, which you can only hear on this album: “Memories of Mingus”, “The Seventh Circle”, and “Copernicus / Alex Murphy”.