Streisand’s Tide Comes In at Directors Guild : Movies: DGA also nominates Demme, Levinson, Scott and Stone for 1991 best director award. A harbinger for Oscars?

Barbra Streisand said she was “thrilled” and Oliver Stone felt “vindicated” by the nominations they received Tuesday from the Directors Guild of America for best director of 1991.

Streisand became only the third woman in the 44-year history of the guild to receive a nomination. She received the nod for directing the psychological drama “The Prince of Tides,” in which she co-stars with Nick Nolte. Stone was nominated for one of the year’s most controversial movies, “JFK,” which revives conspiracy theories on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

They will compete with:

* Jonathan Demme for directing the thriller “The Silence of the Lambs,” which stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.

* Barry Levinson for “Bugsy,” the biographical film about mobster Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

* Ridley Scott for “Thelma & Louise,” the controversial female “buddy” story starring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon as women rebelling against male chauvinism.

Wide attention is given the Directors Guild nominations because they, like the Golden Globe Awards handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. in January, are often barometers of the annual race for the Oscars--Hollywood’s top prize.

But this year’s batch of Globe winners and guild nominees do little to narrow the possibilities of what appears to be the most wide-open Oscar race in years.

Directors not nominated by the guild but often mentioned as Oscar contenders include Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise for the animated feature “Beauty and the Beast,” Martha Coolidge for “Rambling Rose,” John Singleton for “Boyz N the Hood” and Terry Gilliam for “The Fisher King.”

The guild will announce winners at a dinner on March 14, while the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce Oscar nominations on Feb. 19 and its winners on March 30.

The Directors Guild winner has gone on to win the best-director Oscar in all but three of the past 43 years the award has been made.

Even more telling for Oscar watchers is the frequent correlation between the DGA best-director award and the Oscar winner for best motion picture. In seven of the last 10 years, the guild winner has gone on to capture the Oscar for best director and the movie, in turn, was named best picture.

Streisand, speaking by phone from her home in Los Angeles, was clearly elated by the news of her nomination. “I must say I like that; I am really thrilled and honored to be nominated by my peers. As an actress, I’d love to work with any one of the other nominees.”

The first woman to be nominated for a Directors Guild award was Lina Wertmuller for the 1976 Italian film “Seven Beauties”; the second was Randa Haines in 1986 for “Children of a Lesser God.” Neither took home the prize.

Asked if the third woman’s nomination might be the lucky one, Streisand noted, “ ‘Third Time Lucky’ is the name of one of my upcoming projects.

“Seriously, I’m just happy that we’ve evolved in this business. There are many more women directors now than there were when I did ‘Yentl.’ ” That 1983 film musical won her a Golden Globe Award, but she was ignored by the Directors Guild competition and the Oscars.

Looking back, she said, she believes the voters “evaluated my personality, rather than the work.”

Besides Streisand and Coolidge, other prominent women directors in 1991 included Jodie Foster for “Little Man Tate” and Agnieszka Holland for “Europa Europa.”

Stone heard the news of his nomination while traveling in Europe where “JFK” opened last week in Germany and Tuesday night in France. He was reached by telephone in Paris just after he had received the French government’s medal as Commander of Arts and Letters for his directing and writing career.

Reacting to the guild nomination, Stone said, “Not only am I honored, especially with this nomination from my peers, but I feel, to a certain degree, vindicated. Given the hostility of the media, I had doubts that the film would ever (perform so well).”

Stone, who also picked up a Golden Globe for best director, said the “vindication” is sweet. Referring to some published articles, Stone said, “I’ve been accused by organs of the establishment of irresponsibility. I feel they are irresponsible. They have libeled the film, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jim Garrison and they’ve continued, in a sense, to libel John Kennedy.”

Stone said, “I am proud of the movie if it has created any momentum to get the truth out there.”

Scott, speaking from Haco, Costa Rica, where he is filming “Columbus” with Gerard Depardieu, expressed surprise over his nomination for “Thelma & Louise.”

“I thought we might have been forgotten since the movie came out last May,” Scott said. “As a director, it’s nice to feel that, after all these months, they still remember it. We must have made a real impression.”

Demme and Levinson were not immediately available for comment.

Over the years, the guild’s selections have mirrored the Oscar for best direction all but three times. The exceptions have been: 1968, when Anthony Harvey won the guild’s award for “The Lion in Winter,” but Carol Reed took the Oscar for “Oliver!”; 1972, when Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA prize for “The Godfather,” but lost the Oscar to Bob Fosse for “Cabaret,” and 1985, when Steven Spielberg was given the guild’s award for “The Color Purple,” but was not even nominated for an Oscar, which eventually was won by Sydney Pollack for “Out of Africa.”

The 9,000 members of the Directors Guild also award prizes for television direction; those nominations will be announced next week.