By this point a lot of you have seen the news that Cristobal Tapia de Veer won’t be returning to score The White Lotus. Those of you that read Cristo’s interview with the New York Times also know that this was a messy split. For instance, from day one Cristo and Mike White (the show’s creator, show runner, director, and writer) were at odds on season one’s main title theme – White wanted “something you would listen to in Ibiza” while Cristo wanted the edgy, weird theme and palette that they eventually settled on.
Come season 3, Cristo had “no direction” for the main theme, leading to him taking things in a new direction with various Thai instruments and abandoning the “ooh-loo-loo-loos” from the first two seasons. Of course, the change came with public outrage, decrying the stylistic change and wondering where the familiar elements went.
It turns out, Cristo wanted to introduce the all-too-familiar “ooh-loo-loo-loos” later in the season; a producer was on board with the move but White nixed the idea. Nonetheless, Cristo released his cut on YouTube (one point of clarity is needed here: I’ve seen a number of people claim Cristo intended this to be the main title sequence music, which would have stretched out the titles by around a minute. Not true. Obviously, that’s not something a composer has control over. Instead, it represents music he wanted to use later in the show).
By that point, Cristo says White “was just saying no to anything”, leading Cristo to leave the show (telling other crew but waiting till the end to tell White “for the shock”). Ultimately, he describes the experience as him “almost forcing the music into the show, in a way, because I didn’t have that many allies in there” but that it was, all things considered, “a good struggle.”
Now, I was pretty surprised to see all this come to light. You very, very rarely see composers speaking publicly about negative working experiences. I’ve interviewed close to one hundred composers at this point, and at most I’ll get extremely vague mentions of past bad experiences simply existing; to have someone tell-all, basically unprompted, is wild. The reasons for this reticence are pretty easy to understand: gigs are hard to come by, there are plenty of other composers vying for your spot, and composers occupy relatively supporting positions, so it’s dangerous to publicly air your grievances. Who wants to hire the composer that’s going to be a public menace? There are fifty other talented composers waiting in line, all ready to take their shot and who won’t make a scene.
Given where I sit, my first inclination is usually to side with the composer in these types of situations. I’ve heard enough off the record to know how much of a pain in the ass the job can be. That said, I’ve seen a lot of people call Cristo a diva for this, and there’s some validity there too. After all, you’re working in service to the show and all of that flows through the show runner; you try to make your case, but ultimately it’s their call (same with a director on films). I can imagine it’s frustrating for it to be a constant “struggle”, but those are also the rules of the game, and you know them when you sign up. Posting the music you wanted but that was cut also comes off as a bit petty, as if trying to say “look what they took from you”. And it all looks a bit worse coming on the eve of the series finale.
I assumed that was that – Cristo and White had a bad working relationship, the results spoke for themselves (the show has been a massive critical and commercial success, and Cristo won three Emmys for it), but eventually it boiled over. But it didn’t stop there.
After the New York Times interview, Cristo has had a number of tweets on the subject, first posting an interview clip with Trent Reznor talking about how important it is to play music with people you like (probably a not-so-subtle dig at how he didn’t like working with White). Fair enough, if a little immature. Then the last two days have seen him say: “M is for misogynist” (gotta wonder who “M” is…), “You know when I got the most massive vicious troll attack from zombie twitter? When I won my third Emmy for The White Lotus. So interesting,” “looks like I’m gonna have to put a restraining order on this guy,” and finally “Imagine a Hollywood creep you work with sends an email to bully your wife (or your kid, your mum…) in the middle of the night, how would you retaliate?”
Reading these, you really wonder just what the hell was going on?
Other than the “M” comment, he keeps these a bit vague, though obviously they stem from his work on The White Lotus and his interview with the New York Times. The claim of a threat, in particular, is beyond troubling, and indicates some heavy retaliation against him for speaking out (if true). And the Emmys comment is interesting, because he goes on to say “it was non stop trolling for a week, then it stoped (sic) abruptly, as if by remote control…” If you look at the Emmy announcement for his third win, it is filled with comments attacking him and his music and calling the win a robbery (Nicholas Britell’s work on Succession is also great, but they’re both excellent works). Was there really some kind of astroturfing campaign against him? Who knows.
It’s reckless to take one person’s side of a story as the truth, especially when the other hasn’t spoken out about it at all. If White does, I’m sure it will be filled with conflicting statements, with the only known truth being they didn’t get along. But the escalation here isn’t normal: either Cristo is burning a lot of bridges with false/embellished statements or things behind the scenes are very, very bad, with some nasty people involved, making real threats and trying to cut short careers. Either way, this clearly can be a dirty business and you have to imagine this happens in other shows and films – though they’re all working together making art, money, reputation, and ego all up the stakes. Even if Cristo’s New York Times interview was reckless or “diva” behavior, maybe it’ll get us wondering what else might be going on…