The Frankfurt school there is a certain logic as you note.

As for that book, write it and I will read it. It’s a fascinating topic, I think in many ways Camus and Sartre condensed something already in the air, gave it form and substance but fiction was already exploring it.

In fact, and this is a massive tangent, the failure for me of current British fiction is its failure to be in the vanguard of exploring new thought. That’s not a problem they had in the ’20s and ’30s (among many other periods, but there’s dry spells as well as wet and I think we’re in a dry one).

As for Camus and Sartre, I actually do think that they are both products of the Second World War. Camus’ best work post-dates it and even The Outsider was the product of the occupation. As for Sartre, there’s a world of difference in tone between La Nausee (pre-war) and No Exit (written during occupation) as well as between Being and Nothingness (pre-war) and stuff like Existentialism is a Humanism (post-war).

The Frankfurt School was all about the Holocaust but then the Frankfurt School was almost entirely composed of Jewish socialists…

Imagine a movie like, say, KING OF KINGS or JESUS OF NAZARETH but instead of Jesus it is centered around something like The Flying Spaghetti Monster (to make a crude example).

The interesting part would be to see how the audience reacted: How many of them would actually start to take this non-existent religion seriously, if it were presented as a serious faith?

Nausea is also 1938, Being and Nothingness 1943, I’m not sure your chronology works there Jonathan.

Without the Holocaust it’s quite possible their work wouldn’t have received the attention it did, but that doesn’t make it a causal link.

I’d also suggest that existentialist thought is fairly common in the popular fiction of the 1930s, although generally without then a neat label (that came later). On the pulp side there’s obviously Lovecraft and Howard, but more interestingly and with greater literary success there’s Chandler. Existentialism to varying degrees is present in all their works. I think a fair argument could be made that hardboiled fiction is only possible because of existentialism, that it’s a response and dramatisation of it.

With Bergman’s trilogy in the middle :-)

It could start with BLACK DEATH and end with LIFE OF BRIAN.

It was only showing at two cinemas in London sadly and with no marketing push at all. Really disappointing release actually. Make a note of it though, well worth checking out when it comes out on DVD (which I suspect will not be long given current distribution trends… the cinema screenings are more of a focal point for DVD roll-out than a serious attempt to find an audience for a film).