The celebrated New York-based filmmaker most famous for Annie Hall and Manhattan, as well as more recent films Midnight in Paris, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and the forthcoming To Rome With Love also revealed how he is now committed to shooting his movies in Europe and insists the language barrier is not a problem.

He said: “I make films for literate people. I have to assume there are many millions of people in the world who are educated and literate and want sophisticated entertainment that does not cater to the lowest common denominator and is not all about car crashes and bathroom jokes.”

“I always wanted to be a foreign film maker. But I’m from Brooklyn so I couldn’t be because I wasn’t foreign. all of a sudden, through happy accidents, I’ve become one, to such a degree that I’m even writing subtitles. So I’m thrilled with that.

“The language is never a problem because when you’re making a movie there are only a few things you ever talk about and you learn them right away. I did three pictures with a Chinese cameraman who didn’t speak a word of English – not a word. And it didn’t matter at all because we were only talking about lighting and the angle.”