müller was born in curaçao (at the time in the netherlands antilles) in 1940, and moved to amsterdam in 1953. he studied at the netherlands film academy from 1962 to 1964. he worked as cinematographer on a number of shorts before collaborating with wim wenders on his first feature, "summer in the city" (1970). they went on to make many more films together such as "alice in the cities" (1974), "kings of the road" (1976), "the american friend" (1977) and "paris, texas" (1984).