HOLLYWOOD NEWS

Feb 4, 2007–After six tries, Martin Scorsese took the DGA feature directing award for the mob gansgter feature, “The Departed.” He won the DGA's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

The DGA award underlines Scorsese status as the frontrunner for the Best Director Oscar, to be presented Feb. 25. He won the Golden Globe three weeks ago. The DGA winner, based on voting by 13,400 Guild members, has matched the Oscar winner in 52 of its 58 awards, including last year, when Ang Lee won both for “Brokeback Mountain.”

Saturday night's win, presented by Steven Spielberg at the Century Plaza before a crowd of about 1,000, came more than three decades after Scorsese's first nomination for another gritty drama “Taxi Driver.”

“It's the first time I've been given this recognition,” Scorsese noted at the top of his acceptance speech. The 64-year-old helmer was the only repeat DGA nominee, topping Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for “Babel,” Bill Condon for “Dreamgirls,” Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for “Little Miss Sunshine” and Stephen Frears for “The Queen.”

“I just wanted to make a good film and people would go see it and enjoy the film and that's it God willing I'd get another picture,” Scorsese said in his usual rapid-fire delivery. “I did not think I'd be standing here tonight, I'll tell you that.”

Prior to the award, Scorsese received by far the warmest reception during presentations of nominee plaques. Leonardo DiCaprio, who starred in Scorsese's last three films, told the audience in his speech that the director never stops teaching: “Every time you're with him, whether on set or at dinner, you learn something.”

Scorsese noted kiddingly that the grosses for “The Departed,” an adaptation of Hong Kong hit “Infernal Affairs,” were especially strong in such organized crime centers as Las Vegas. “It was the first picture I'd ever done with a plot,” he added.

Scorsese also paid tribute to genre film directors such as Don Siegel, Samuel Fuller, Bud Boetticher, Anthony Mann and Robert Aldrich. “So I thank them and I thank you tonight,” he concluded. “I am greatly honored.”

Scorsese now faces Frears and Inarritu for the Oscar, along with Clint Eastwood for “Letters From Iwo Jima” and Paul Greengrass for “United 93.”

It's his sixth Oscar directing nomination along with “Raging Bull,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Goodfellas” “Gangs of New York” and “The Aviator.”

“The Departed” has taken in the highest gross among the nominated films with $127 million domestically and nearly $270 million worldwide. Scorsese's previous DGA nominations were for “The Aviator,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Goodfellas,” “Raging Bull” and “Taxi Driver.”