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Throughout World War II and beyond, the leading French existentialists Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, had a special relationship with Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). In 1945, they created the French journal, Modern Times, inspired by Charlie Chaplin film The Les Temps Modernes. This silent movie powerfully symbolized the sad state of modern society, the machine age, and capitalism. The journal replaced the popular pre-war magazine, The New French Review, which was shut down after the liberation of France due to its supposed collaboration with the Nazi occupation.