Directors Scramble the Bets : Movies: The Directors Guild choice of Jonathan Demme for “Silence of the Lambs” has Hollywood guessing about the Oscar for best picture.

With the Academy Awards ceremonies just two weeks from tonight, the hottest game in Hollywood is guessing which movie will win best picture.

All previous predictions went out the window after Saturday night’s surprising announcement that Jonathan Demme won top honors from the Directors Guild of America for his work on the dark thriller “The Silence of the Lambs.”

The conventional thinking about the Directors Guild awards had been that Oliver Stone might have the edge because of the national debate that his “JFK” has spurred about who killed President John F. Kennedy.

Or that Barbra Streisand might win for “The Prince of Tides” because she didn’t receive a directing nomination for the Academy Awards. Or that Barry Levinson might, what with “Bugsy” having garnered the most Oscar nominations--10. (The fifth Directors Guild nominee was Ridley Scott for “Thelma & Louise.”)

Had one of these scenarios played out, the guessing game for those who take part in the national pastime of Oscar pools might have been simplified.

That’s because the winner of the Directors Guild award usually goes on to win the Oscar for best director. And that film, in turn, most often wins the prize for best picture.

Now, with Demme’s success, “The Silence of the Lambs” is regarded as a much stronger contender than it had been--especially since Oscar ballots are still in the hands of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences voters, and not due until early next week.

The Directors Guild award was merely the latest in a series of mixed signals Hollywood has been witnessing from what are usually reliable Oscar indicators.

The best picture winner is frequently the movie that receives the most Oscar nominations, like “Dances With Wolves” last year, which also happened to draw Directors Guild honors for its director, Kevin Costner. This year, “Bugsy” has the most nominations but didn’t win the Directors Guild prize.

Another Oscar indicator is the Golden Globe Awards, given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. But because this year’s Globes were split among several films, no clear leader emerged. “Bugsy” won for best drama while another best picture Oscar nominee--Walt Disney Studios’ “Beauty and the Beast”--won for best musical. And the award for best director went to Stone.

Demme’s win was as much a surprise to him as it was to anyone else. “We were stunned,” he said in an interview Sunday from New York. He accepted his award in ceremonies there while his West Coast peers gathered at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.

“You don’t really want to beat anybody,” he said. “And yet it’s really an honor. It’s a strange thing, since I’m not really an awards person, and yet I’m hoping that our movie gets honored at the Oscars.”

Demme told the New York audience that he was “the 44th white male to receive this award, which I have confused feelings about.”

Other directing awards announced Saturday night:

* TV comedy series: Peter Bonerz, “Murphy Brown,” CBS.

* TV musical-variety show: Walter C. Miller, “The 1991 Tony Awards,” CBS.

* TV nighttime dramatic series: Eric Laneuville, “I’ll Fly Away,” NBC.

* TV dramatic special: Stephen Gyllenhaal, “Paris Trout,” Showtime.

* TV dramatic daytime show: Roy Campenella II, “Wonderworks,” PBS.

* TV daytime serial: Michael Stich, “The Bold and the Beautiful,” CBS.

Documentary: Barbara Kopple, “American Dream.”

* Commercial: Joseph Pytka, “The Bo Show” (Nike) and “Hallmark Dance Card.”

* Special awards: Akira Kurosawa, the D. W. Griffith Award; Jack Shea, the Robert B. Alrich Service Award; Edward T. Nathanson, the career achievement award for sports; Charles Champlin, the life achievement award; Marilyn Jacobs-Furey, the Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award.