I'm no artist says Woody Allen - right or wrong?

The New York film director Woody Allen has divided filmgoers by saying at the Cannes premiere of his latest romantic comedy, Midnight in Paris, that he is no artist, and that it is "clear as a bell" that he does not belong in the company of Bergman and Bunuel and Fellini, his film-making heroes.

"I consider myself a hugely lucky film-maker," Allen said yesterday. "I've never considered myself an artist. I've aspired to be one but 'I've never felt that I have the depth or substance or the gift to be an artist."

Allen, now 75 and with 40 films behind him, was prepared to concede that he knows how to make films, but "some of them come out good, some of them come out better and some of them come out worse...

"I think I've had some talent but it doesn't go as far as being an artist, because if you think that Kurosawa was an artist and Bergman was an artist and Buñuel was an artist and Fellini, then it's clear as a bell that I'm not an artist."

Some will not be disappointed to hear Allen in self-deprecating mode. With the exception of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his recent forays beyond his native New York have pleased few critics and fans. In some cases, he has been charged with making little more than travelogues - an accusation already leveled at Midnight in Paris.

But critics and fans who remember Allen's glory days - Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters - say he is a master of the art who has every right to rest on his laurels.

Midnight in Paris stars Owen Wilson as an American writer on holiday with his fiancee (Rachel MacAdams) in the French capital who falls for with a beautiful young woman (Marion Cotillard).

The Independent review encapsulates the problem: "Woody Allen's latest film is a pleasant, if very undercharged affair, which unashamedly basks in every last cliche about Paris as a city of artists, intellectuals, gourmands and lovers."

No one ever called Manhattan, or any of his other early classics for that matter, pleasant. ·