Anatole Dauman; Producer Known for Innovative Films

Anatole Dauman, a risk-taking international film producer who worked with innovative directors to create commercially successful classics such as “The Tin Drum” and “Wings of Desire,” died Wednesday. He was 73.

Dauman died at his home in Paris of a heart attack, sources in Los Angeles said.

Born in Poland, Dauman moved to France at an early age and in 1949 established Argos Films, which produced motion pictures by such highly praised but often controversial directors as Alain Resnais, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlondorff, Wim Wenders, Andrei Tarkovsky and Chris Marker.

“The Tin Drum,” directed by Schlondorff, earned the 1979 Academy Award for best foreign film.

Familiar around the world in art houses, Dauman’s films frequently inspired mainstream Hollywood spinoffs.

Wenders’ German classic “Wings of Desire,” which Dauman produced in 1987, will be introduced Friday in American form as “City of Angels,” set in Los Angeles and starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.

Marker’s “La Jette,” which Dauman produced in 1962, was remade in 1995 as “Twelve Monkeys,” starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

Dauman received a lifetime achievement award at the European Film Awards in Paris in 1989. He also was honored with a special tribute at the 1995 American Film Institute Film Festival in Los Angeles, where he spoke on the impact of American films in foreign markets.

The producer and his company first began to attract international notice with Resnais’ short film “Night and Fog” in 1955 and Resnais’ initial feature “Hiroshima Mon Amor” in 1959.

In the 1960s, Dauman and Argos brought to theaters such works as Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” and “Mouchette” and Godard’s “Masculine-Feminine” and “Two or Three Things I Know About Her.”

In 1976, Dauman fielded Japanese director Oshima’s controversial “In the Realm of the Senses,” which outraged censors but enchanted critics around the world. The two men followed that with “Empire of Passion” in 1978.

After his Academy Award success with “The Tin Drum,” Dauman hit his zenith in the 1980s with Wenders’ “Paris Texas” in 1984 and “Wings of Desire” three years later. Dauman also produced Wenders’ less successful “Until the End of the World,” starring William Hurt and Max von Sydow, in 1991.

In 1986, Dauman produced the final film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, “The Sacrifice.”

Dauman’s own final work was a film directed by Marker in 1996, “Level Five.”

Married and divorced twice, Dauman is survived by a daughter, Florence Dauman, of Los Angeles.