Directors Guild announces nominees

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- The Directors Guild of America announced feature film nominees Tuesday for its 55th Annual DGA awards, singling out three relative newcomers and two veterans.

The nominees are: Steven Daldry ("The Hours"), Peter Jackson ("The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"), Rob Marshall ("Chicago"), Roman Polanski ("The Pianist") and Martin Scorsese ("Gangs of New York").

"The Hours" is Daldry's second major directorial effort, following "Billy Elliott" -- which earned him an Oscar nomination in 2000. This is his first DGA nomination.

Before taking on the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Jackson had been best known for the 1994 feature "Heavenly Creatures" and the 1996 supernatural action-comedy "The Frighteners." Jackson was nominated for the directing Oscar and the DGA Award last year for "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."

"Chicago" is Marshall's first feature film as a director, and just his second high-profile directing assignment, following the 1999 TV movie adaptation of "Annie."

Polanski has his third DGA nomination for "The Pianist." He was previously nominated for "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and "Chinatown" (1974).

Polanski won the Golden Globe and was nominated for the Oscar for "Chinatown." He was also nominated for the Oscar for "Tess" (1980).

Scorsese -- who won the Golden Globe Award Sunday for directing "Gangs of New York" -- has been nominated five times for the DGA Award, but has never won. His previous nominations came for "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Raging Bull" (198), "GoodFellas" (1990) and "The Age of Innocence" (1993).

Scorsese has been nominated for the Academy Award for "GoodFellas," "Raging Bull" and "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), but has never won the Oscar.

The DGA announced last week that it will present Scorsese with its highest honor -- a lifetime achievement award -- at the upcoming awards, on March 1 in Los Angeles.

Scorsese will join a list of past winners that includes Hollywood legends Woody Allen, Frank Capra, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder. The most recent DGA lifetime achievement award went to Steven Spielberg in 2000.