Calendar Big Oscars Issue : Director’s Approach : Winning awards has seemed easy for director Milos Forman. Casting his ballot this year--well, that’s another thing.

For Milos Forman, winning Oscars seems easier than deciding who else should win them.

Forman took home the best director trophy for his 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and again nine years later for “Amadeus.”

Both films were also named best picture in their respective years, and “Cuckoo’s Nest” won the top five awards--best picture, best actress, best actor, best director and best screenplay (adapted)--which had been done only once before, in 1934 by Frank Capra’s “It Happened One Night,” and has been accomplished only once since, by 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs.”

But Forman, who was contacted before he had submitted his votes for this year’s sweepstakes, had not yet made up his mind for whom to vote in the best picture or best director categories.

“It’s a very interesting year,” he said from his Connecticut home. “I am still torn between three films. ‘Forrest Gump’ was a very popular movie, a very wonderful movie. ‘Pulp Fiction’ was also very popular, but very daring, quite brilliantly made and somehow more hip. But ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was very thought-provoking and compassionate. It was a very strong movie and unusual in that it evoked a lot of sympathy.”

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Herewith, Forman’s thoughts on the nominees, as well as his memories of his own wins and his advice to the nominees on how to survive the tension:

BEST PICTURE

Forrest Gump. Forman calls “Gump,” Robert Zemeckis’ saga of an inspired buffoon and his unwitting influence on three decades of American culture, a “very intelligent fairy tale, which the academy likes from time to time very much.

“The special effects definitely helped, but they aren’t the main reason this film works so beautifully. It really made us feel for the underdog, who was portrayed so brilliantly by Tom Hanks. It provoked a lot of complex emotions in the audience.”

Pulp Fiction. “From the first moment to the last, I was not bored at all, and I believed it all,” Forman declares of writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s valentine to L.A. lowlifes. “The way the story is told is very fresh and intriguing.”

The Shawshank Redemption. Forman was among the many surprised that given the number of nominations this film garnered, writer-director Frank Darabont didn’t receive a best director nomination for his warm-fuzzy prison drama.

“It was a very daring project,” Forman said, “a wonderful combination of writing and directing. It was excellently structured. Initially, it hooks you as a thriller, and then you realize that you’re watching something much deeper than that as the characters take over.”

Quiz Show. “It’s a very, very distinguished film; I respect it very much,” Forman says of Robert Redford’s cerebral dissection of the beginning of the downfall of television’s integrity. Nonetheless, he adds, “On an emotional level, it doesn’t surpass either ‘Shawshank’ or ‘Forrest Gump,’ and on a technical, filmmaking level, it doesn’t surpass ‘Pulp Fiction.’ ”

Four Weddings and a Funeral. “I don’t think it stands a chance” of winning the best picture Oscar, Forman says of Mike Newell’s sleeper-hit romantic comedy about a British man and an American woman who fall for each other under quixotic conditions.

Still, he’s a big fan of the movie: “It deserves the nomination completely. It’s a very intelligent comedy at a time when comedy and intelligence are rarely found side by side.”

BEST DIRECTOR

As with the best picture category, Forman admitted to still being torn between three nominees--”Gump’s” Zemeckis, “Pulp’s” Tarantino and “Bullets Over Broadway’s” Woody Allen. (He had not yet seen Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red.”)

Robert Zemeckis. “To do this kind of intelligent and compassionate fairy tale needs a good balance,” Forman said. “You don’t want an over-saccharinized version on one hand, and you don’t want something too silly on the other. Robert Zemeckis found that perfect balance.”

Quentin Tarantino. Forman, who had not seen Tarantino’s first film, “Reservoir Dogs,” was nonetheless impressed with how he handled his updated film noir effort, but conceded that the fact that the acclaimed first-time nominee tackled such familiar territory may work against him here.

“That might be his nemesis,” Forman said. “The whole thing about ‘Pulp Fiction’ is, these are all story elements that we’ve seen a million times before. There’s nothing new there. But the way he put them together is so fresh and new, he’s proving the old adage that there’s nothing new under the sun, you just have to say it in a different way. And that’s a big accomplishment.”

Woody Allen. “I love ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ ” Forman said unabashedly of the comedy about gangsters invading the Great White Way. “Woody is such a resourceful and wonderful filmmaker.”

Allen was one of the nominees in 1984, when Forman won over Allen’s directorial efforts on “Broadway Danny Rose.” Forman said he had never had a chance to speak to Allen about their competition, though he did meet him once.

“He gave a party, and I was invited. It took me an hour to find him among all the people. And we were introduced, and then we were silent for 30 seconds. And that was it.”

Robert Redford. “His film is very respectfully made, probably too respectful,” Forman said. “It was a little too self-important for its own good.”

Forman’s own Oscar experience was an emotional one--though that had nothing to do with winning. In 1968, Forman had fled his homeland of Czechoslovakia after it was invaded by Russians; he did not see his twin sons again until the day before Oscar night in 1976.

“The only thing I remember about that is that I was absolutely furious with the arrangements at the airport,” Forman recalled. “My sons were 12, and didn’t speak any English. And I stood there for literally two-and-a-half hours; I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t get any information from anyone at the airport. No one would confirm that they were on the plane.”

Happily, Forman was finally reunited with his boys, and enjoyed “Cuckoo’s Nest’s” big night with them (though they applauded at one point when George Burns beat out “Cuckoo’s Nest’s” Brad Dourif for the best supporting actor award). At the end of that evening, Elizabeth Taylor inexplicably ad-libbed, suggesting all in attendance sing “America the Beautiful.”

Forman didn’t mind the impromptu show of patriotism. “At that moment, I felt that America was more than beautiful.”

Just before the 1984 Oscar ceremony, Forman told The Times: “If you take the Oscar too seriously, as some sort of final judgment, you’re in trouble.” A dozen years later, he sticks by his comment.

“What’s in my control, I take seriously. What isn’t, I don’t. The thinking doesn’t rob you of excitement and happiness, but it helps you keep your feet on the ground.”