Directors Guild of America announces nominations Los Angeles Times Films that pushed the director's craft and had moviegoers talking were nominated Monday for outstanding directorial achievement by the Directors Guild of America. Whether it was a chilling ghost story, a supernatural death row tale or a surreal comedy about the quest for 15 minutes of fame, the nominated films were an eclectic mix of the traditional and the avant-garde. Grabbing the nominations were the directors of "The Sixth Sense'' (M. Night Shyamalan); "The Green Mile'' (Frank Darabont); "Being John Malkovich'' (Spike Jonze); "American Beauty'' (Sam Mendes), the Golden Globe-winning dark satire set in American suburbia; and "The Insider'' (Michael Mann), a dramatization of the true story of a tobacco industry whistle-blower and the ensuing editing of a "60 Minutes'' news report. The winner will be announced March 11 during the 52nd annual DGA Awards dinner. Not only were some of the selections virtually ignored by the nation's film critics in earlier tallies, but the majority of this year's nominees were also newcomers to the DGA Awards. Four of the nominees, in fact, are 40 or younger. Two had never directed a feature-length movie before - Jonze and Mendes. Freshman filmmaker Mendes was nominated for "American Beauty." An acclaimed stage director, Mendes won a Tony two years ago for "Cabaret.'' Based on a screenplay by Alan Ball, "American Beauty'' takes a darkly comedic look at the American Dream as a man's midlife crisis causes him and his world to self-destruct. Jonze, who cut his teeth on commercials and music videos, was nominated for "Being John Malkovich,'' a technically audacious black comedy about a down-and-out puppeteer who discovers a mysterious portal that leads inside the brain of actor John Malkovich. "I feel pretty amazed because it is the DGA and it's voted on by other directors,'' Jonze said in a statement Monday, adding, "It is quite an honor.'' Darabont, who directed Tom Hanks in the three-hour prison drama "The Green Mile,'' was the only previous nominee in this category. He was nominated five years ago for "The Shawshank Redemption,'' another prison drama, which, like his current film, was based on a Stephen King story. "My head is spinning and I'm walking on cloud nine,'' Darabont said after being told of his nomination. Darabont believes audiences have embraced the film for the same reason he responded to King's story. "It's such an emotional journey and, as a story, it is such a full meal,'' he explained. "That really is what I think audiences are taking away. It's a nice vindication. I think if you tell a good, involving story, they will come.'' Mann, who received the DGA Award 20 years ago for the TV movie "The Jericho Mile,'' this year picked up his first feature nomination for "The Insider.'' A well-known action director of such movies as "The Last of the Mohicans,'' "Manhunter'' and "Heat,'' Mann said "The Insider'' pushed him as a director. "The attraction to me, the challenge of this picture, was the absence of physical action and to try and make the intense thriller that we knew occurred inside the lives of the real people be manifested on the screen without physical action,'' Mann said. "So for me as a director, I chose to do this picture almost precisely because the intensity had to come from the situational drama and the psychology and the performance and the language.'' At 29, Shyamalan is the youngest DGA nominee this year. His box-office blockbuster "The Sixth Sense,'' starring Bruce Willis and 11-year-old Haley Joel Osment, was one of the big surprises of 1999. The film was second in domestic box office (more than $275 million so far). Born in India but raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, Shyamalan got his first Super-8 movie camera at age 8 and began to model his career on his idol, Steven Spielberg. It was Spielberg who announced the nominations Monday morning at DGA headquarters. If history is any indication, whoever wins the DGA Award will become the front-runner for the Academy Award for best director. Only four times since 1949 has the winner of the DGA Award not gone on to win the Oscar for best director. Originally on page 8A in the 1-26-2000 issue of the Daily.