Robby Müller (1940-2018) gave soul to films by the greatest directors

Could it be a coincidence that several of my favourite films were shot by Dutch cameraman Robby Müller? Or that several international directors made their best work with him? Is it also sometimes a coincidence that Müller made his first short film Button turned in the revolutionary year 1968?

Who knows. In my memory, Müller lives on mainly as a modest but strongly atmospheric force behind the new cinema of the 1970s and beyond. The time of the first film houses and the early years of the Rotterdam festival. The time when filmmakers like Wim Wenders, who made a large number of films with Müller, showed that everything could be different.

'Painting with light' was often called his working method. Director of Photography Robby Müller shot over seventy films in total, making a significant Dutch contribution to the international film world. His family announced that he died on Tuesday 3 July in his hometown of Amsterdam. Müller had been ill for some time.

Feeling for character

Robby Müller was born on 4 April 1940 in Curaçao. He spent his childhood in Indonesia until 1953. At the Film Academy (1962-1964), he specialised in camera and editing, after which he left for Germany. There he met Wim Wenders, who was about to become one of the forerunners of the new German cinema. It was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration. Some other important directors he would later collaborate with include Jim Jarmusch, Lars von Trier and Steve McQueen.

In 2002, he shot his last feature-length film: 24 Hour Party People by Michael Winterbottom. He shot this hilarious retrospective of the British punk scene in the cheeky, improvised style of a fake documentary. Here, Müller provides the unflinching feeling that you are experiencing everything on the spot. A style that blends seamlessly with the story. Because that was Müller's great strength. A perfect feel for the character a film needed.

The power of natural light

It is almost paradoxical that his mastery is seemingly so casual and unobtrusive. He knew how to give films an uncomplicated sense of 'realness'. There are many anecdotes about Müller that show how he preferred to start without a plan. Just starting from scratch, as it were, and seeing what was needed. Averse to rules he was. He turned down an offer to do the third Harry Potter film because, in his opinion, far too much had already been decided in advance.

Müller liked to look for the expressive power of natural light. Not for nothing was he sometimes compared to Vermeer. Sometimes he insisted on waiting for the right light, but he could also improvise quickly and without fuss. Averse to effect, but eager to pick up on new developments. For Lars von Trier's Dancer in The Dark (2000), he used hundreds of small digital cameras.

Ultimate road movie

My introduction to Robby Müller's work coincides with my discovery of Wim Wenders. Then I think mainly of his ultimate road movie Im Lauf der Zeit (1976). A film to immerse yourself in. Travelling with those two taciturn, lonely men who travel through the German hinterland to fix projectors in village cinemas. A film that was also written while travelling. Photographed by Robby Müller in a beautiful black and white that captures the flow of relatively loose events in a way that is as uninhibited as it is honest. A film like life itself, we thought a tad romantically at the time.

After Der amerikanische Freund (1977), Wenders temporarily parted ways with Müller and spent seven years searching. He only found his form again when he engaged Müller again at Paris, Texas (1984). He saw that rewarded at Cannes with the Golden Palm. In it, Müller's simple but crystal clear and sophisticated images of a poignant search for love in a sometimes alienating landscape undoubtedly played a major role.

Visual blues

Another filmmaker who owes much to Müller is Jim Jarmusch, the great hero of independent American cinema in the 1980s. A striking example is Down By Law (1986). A curious comedy featuring three grumbling anti-heroes (including Roberto Benigni) in a wonderful no-man's land. Again, images that are simultaneously mesmerising and down-to-earth realistic, setting a tone all its own. A visual blues I called it at the time.

How Müller's camerawork can give a film a soul in an unexpected way we also see with Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves. A crushing melodrama that tells the unlikely story of naive Scottish girl and her accidentally paralysed husband. A self-sacrifice and a real miracle complete the picture. It could easily have been a dragon. It is mainly Emily Watson's phenomenal acting and Müller's restless, reportage-style shots that prevent that from happening. The earthy goes hand in hand with the spiritual here. Breaking the Waves was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. This was later joined by many others, including the Felix for best European film.

Award

Robby Müller's own work was also awarded many times. In the Netherlands, he received the Golden Calf for the Culture Prize in 2007 and the Bert Haanstra Oeuvre Prize the following year. In America, he received the International Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers in 2012. The EYE Film Museum honoured him two years ago with the exhibition Master of Light.

Impossible to list his films here. For that, click the IMDb to. Let me suffice with a few examples that underline his versatility. William Friedkin's violent revenge drama To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) alongside Barbet Schroeder's pub crawler film Barfly (1987). Sally Potter's autobiographical and artistic exploration The Tango Lesson (1997) alongside the war drama Korczak (1990) by Polish grandmaster Andrzej Wajda. In the Netherlands, he worked twice with Frans Weisz, whom he knew from the Film Academy. With him he shot A balmy summer evening (1982) and Highest time (1995).

A documentary to be screened later this year about Robby Müller and his unique working methods has been made by Claire Pijman under the title Living the Light.