The film traces the frustrated quest of a North Italian youth for a private audience with the Pope. –BFI
An agent for a liqueur company, he became involved in the cinema by making short advertising films; later he worked in the production sector and finally in the sale of cinema equipment, moving to Spain. There he met the young humorist Rafael Azcona, with whom he set up an extraordinary, lasting working relationship: the first fruits of their partnership were “El pisito” (1958), “Los chicos” (1959) and “The Little Coach (El cochecito)” (1960), the three “Spanish comedies” marked by a corrosive anti-bourgeois sarcasm. On returning to Italy, Ferreri continued his Spanish theme with “Queen Bee (L’ape regina)” (1963), an anti-Catholic satire in which the institution of matrimony is so fiercely under fire as to unleash the ire of the censor (requiring various cuts in the film and a slight change to the title). He fared no better with “The Ape Woman (La donna scimmia)” (1964), a bitter and lucid parable on the relationships between the sexes, dominated by the exploitation of the weaker sex… read more
In 1971, Ferreri goes back to an old project of filming Kafka's "The Castle". But he doesn't obtain the rights and so changes it radically. He films "The Audience" with an extraordinary cast. Tognazzi, Gassman, Piccoli, Claudia Cardinale and a young Enzo Jannacci. What remains of Kafka are the quotes of the protagonist who says he's immersed in a Kafkaesque atmosphere. The story of a lowly officer who goes to say something to the Pope …
