There's a short segment about voting by computer, then the discussion turns to Ron Howard, who is expected to win the best-director award for "A Beautiful Mind."

But there's a relentlessness to the direction, which won the best-director award at Cannes last year, that keeps it earthbound.

In September, "Seventeen Years" won him the best-director award at the Venice Film Festival.

The film won Mr. Wong, a critics' darling from Hong Kong, the best-director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

But in his second film, "Hate," for which he won the best-director award at Cannes this spring, he has gone for the jugular.

"We had our eye on Venice anyhow," said someone connected with Mr. Scorsese, who did win the best-director award at the Venice Film Festival last month.

Should the new film take the best-picture or best-director award, no one will be able to say that the jury was attempting to make up for the earlier slight.

As he said when accepting his best-director award, he had watched Sidney Lumet, who is 80, receive the career achievement award and "I figure I'm just a kid."

"Pi" won the best-director award at Sundance.

Later that year he also won the Citizen's Council for Mass Media's best-director award for the film Santiago!