It’ll be Polanski live, via satellite, at DGA
He may be a fugitive from American justice, but director Roman Polanski plans to put in an appearance in Beverly Hills on Saturday -- sort of.
Polanski, an Oscar nominee for “The Pianist,” has agreed to appear via satellite hookup from France for a panel discussion featuring all five contenders for the Directors Guild of America’s top feature film award. Expected to attend in person are Stephen Daldry of “The Hours,” Peter Jackson of “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” Rob Marshall of “Chicago” and Martin Scorsese of “Gangs of New York.”
The symposium is a regular annual event at the DGA in West Hollywood, where the guild’s nominees hold a freewheeling discussion of their movies and the techniques they employed.
The DGA awards dinner will follow later that night at the Century Plaza Hotel and, judging by the list of presenters, the paparazzi will be out in force. Scheduled presenters include George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julianne Moore and Renee Zellweger.
It promises to be a big night for Scorsese, who in addition to being a DGA nominee this year, is also receiving the guild’s life achievement award from previous recipient Steven Spielberg.
Only five times since 1948 has the winner of the DGA award for feature film directing not gone on to win an Oscar. The most recent was Ang Lee for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” who won the DGA award but then lost out at the Oscars to Steven Soderbergh for “Traffic.”
-- Robert W. Welkos
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