Robby Müller (4 April 1940 – 3 July 2018) was a Dutch cinematographer. Known for his use of natural light and minimalist imagery, Müller first gained recognition for his contributions to West German cinema through his acclaimed collaborations with Wim Wenders. Throughout the course of his career, he worked closely with directors Jim Jarmusch, Peter Bogdanovich, Barbet Schroeder, and Lars Von Trier. His work earned him numerous accolades and admiration from his peers.
Müller often photographed the “blue hour” where artificial and natural light meet. “He was inspired by painters who used light the way Caravaggio and Vermeer did. I used to tease him that he should have been born in the same century as Vermeer,” Jim Jarmusch told the New York Times. “Robby would teach me things like, it says in the script that it’s a sunny day, but then on the day of the shoot it would be cloudy and about to rain. Most people would just say, OK, let’s not shoot today. Robby would always say, let’s think, maybe the clouds and the rain is better, let’s not be closed off, let’s be open to what we might do.”
He died on 3 July 2018, aged 78, having suffered from vascular dementia for several years. At the time of his death, he had taken around 2000 polaroids.
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