20000313

'American Beauty' wins year's best director award

LOS ANGELES: "American Beauty," a satiric tale of a suburban family run amok, became the favourite in Hollywood's Oscars sweepstakes on Saturday when its director -- British novice Sam Mendes -- was named the year's best director by the prestigious Director's Guild of America.

With the Oscars set for March 26 and with voting for them still going on, Mendes won the DGA's "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Feature Film" award, beating many of the same men and pictures he is competing with for the Academy Awards.

Although the DGA does not give a best picture award, only four DGA winners have failed to go on to win Oscars for best director and best picture since the directors' group began giving its prize in 1949.

One of those four times was last year when Steven Spielberg won for "Saving Private Ryan" and then won an Oscar for best director but was beaten out for best picture by "Shakespeare in Love."

A second major test in two days for "American Beauty" comes on Sunday night when the Screen Actor's Guild gives its annual awards.

A strong showing in the SAG awards would bolster the chances of "American Beauty" in its tight best picture race with "The Insider," "The Sixth Sense," "The Green Mile" and "The Cider House Rules," which is being promoted with a heavy advertising campaign by its studio, Miramax Pictures, which did the same thing for last year's surprise Oscar winner, "Shakespeare in Love."

Mendes appeared stunned at his Director's Guild victory. The award, which in past years has gone to some of the most famous names in Hollywood, including Spielberg, Billy Wilder and Robert Wise, went this year to a British theatre director working on his first film.

"The first time I met Steven, he gave me the script for 'America Beauty' and the last two times he has given me awards (Spielberg presented the DGA award to Mendes). I only hope you stay in my life for a long time," Mendes said.

Spielberg himself received the DGA's highest honour -- a lifetime achievement award for which he received a standing ovation lasting several minutes. Carl Reiner, the evening's master of ceremonies, said he had not seen such a heartfelt tribute.

Until this year, the lifetime achievement award was named after D.W. Griffith, one of the founding fathers of American cinema whose classic work, "Birth of a Nation," depicted blacks as villains and the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.

Spielberg, the director of the Holocaust epic "Schindler's List" took note of the controversy over removing Griffith's name from the award, saying that if Griffith had made an anti-Jewish film he would oppose naming anything after him. Then he added, "We have to be able to stand in someone else's pain."

But he added that Griffith's achievements should not be overlooked. "He was a founding father of cinema," Spielberg said adding that like many fathers he was far from perfect.-Reuters