Scorsese, Polanski Eye DGA Prize

Tue., Jan. 21, 2003 3:30 PM PST by Lia Haberman

Here's hoping most of the Golden Globe-nominated directors didn't return their tuxes on Monday.

Four of the five will need to don the monkey suit again as they made the cut for the 55th annual Directors Guild of America for 2002's top helmer. The do-overs: newly crowned Globe winner Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York), Rob Marshall (Chicago), Stephen Daldry (The Hours) and Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers). Rounding out the race is exiled veteran director Roman Polanski, whose semi-autobiographical Holocaust drama The Pianist was a Globe contender for Best Drama even though he wasn't.

However, some Oscar hopefuls found themselves dissed by the DGA, including Spike Jonze (Adaptation), who made the Globes director's list but was passed up by the guild in favor of Polanski, and Alexander Payne (About Schmidt), who was honored at the Globes with cowriter Jim Taylor for Best Screenplay.

Other noticeable absences on the director's hit list were Steven Spielberg (Minority Report and Catch Me if You Can), who won Best Director for the double duty at the Broadcast Film Critics Association's Critics' Awards over the weekend, and Todd Haynes, who won several critics awards for helming Far from Heaven, most notably from the New York Film Critics.

According to awards show expert Tom O'Neill, author of Movie Awards, early money is on Marshall, but frontrunners often stumble.

Also, "Marshall is disadvantaged because he's a stage director who's never helmed a feature film in the past," said O'Neill, host of award-predictions Website GoldDerby.com. But, he countered, "Sam Mendes was able to overcome that same curse a few years ago with American Beauty."

The DGA winner is almost guaranteed Oscar gold come March. Since the guild award's inception in 1949 only five winners have not gone on to win the Academy Award. Most recently the guild and the Academy disagreed on Ang Lee for 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the Oscar went to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic). Before that was Ron Howard for 1995's Apollo 13 (Mel Gibson was Oscar'd for Braveheart), Spielberg for 1985's The Color Purple (Sydney Pollack won the Academy Award for Out of Africa), Francis Ford Coppola for 1972's The Godfather (Oscar preferred Bob Fosse's work on Cabaret) and Anthony Harvey for 1968's The Lion in Winter (the Academy props went to Carol Reed for Oliver!).

Scorsese's nomination is his fifth nod from the DGA, though he's never won the award. He was nominated in 1976 for Taxi Driver, in 1980 for Raging Bull, in 1990 for GoodFellas and in 1993 for The Age of Innocence.

Until this weekend, Scorsese had never won a Globe, DGA Award or an Oscar. One down, two to go. Even if he doesn't collect the DGA trophy for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, he'll go home with some hardware. He's already been announced as this year's recipient of the guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. And if he does pull the twofer, he'll make DGA history as the first to collect both statues in the same year.

This is the third nomination for Polanski, who previously picked up nods (but no awards) for 1968's Rosemary's Baby and 1974's Chinatown.

Jackson was also nominated last year for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Meanwhile, it's the first nomination for newbies Daldry and Marshall.

The envelope gets opened March 1 during the DGA Awards Dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the race you really want to watch, the Oscar nominations, will be announced February 11.