Francis Ford Coppola, whose first film in 10 years, Youth Without Youth, just premiered at the Rome Film Festival, has taken umbrage at suggestions he is involved in a comeback.

"I never went anywhere," the director bellowed. "A comeback is like when a fighter stops fighting and then goes and says: 'I'm retiring and then makes a comeback.' Who is to say what a film director's schedule has to be?"

The abundant withering reviews of Youth Without Youth do indeed suggest that "comeback" may not be the word. We shall, of course, reserve judgment until the film opens here at the end of the year.