Max Frisch
Frisch's dramas up until the early 1960s are divided by the literary commentator into three groups: (1) the early wartime pieces, (2) the poetic plays such as "" ("Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur Geometrie") and (3) the dialectical pieces. It is above all with this third group, notably the parable "The Fire Raisers" (1953), identified by Frisch as a "lesson without teaching", and with "Andorra" (1961) that Frisch enjoyed the most success. Indeed, these two are among the most successful German language plays. The writer nevertheless remained dissatisfied because he believed they had been widely misunderstood. In an interview with Heinz Ludwig Arnold Frisch vigorously rejected their allegorical approach: "I have established only that when I apply the parable format, I am obliged to deliver a message that I actually do not have". After the 1960s Frisch moved away from the theatre. His late biographical plays "" ("Biografie: Ein Spiel") and "" were apolitical but they failed to match the public success of his earlier dramas. It was only shortly before his death that Frisch returned to the stage with a more political message, with "Jonas and his Veteran", a stage version of his arresting dialogue "Switzerland without an army? A Palaver".
Max Frisch
The film director believes that Frisch had for the most part an "unfortunate relationship" with film, even though his literary style is often reminiscent of cinematic technique. Seiler explains that Frisch's work was often, in the author's own words, looking for ways to highlight the "white space" between the words, which is something that can usually only be achieved using a film-set. Already, in the "Diary 1946–1949" there is an early sketch for a film-script, titled "Harlequin". His first practical experience of the genre came in 1959, but with a project that was nevertheless abandoned, when Frisch resigned from the production of a film titled "SOS Gletscherpilot" ("SOS Glacier Pilot"), and in 1960 his draft script for "William Tell" ("Castle in Flames") was turned down, after which the film was created anyway, totally contrary to Frisch's intentions. In 1965 there were plans, under the Title "", to film an episode from the novel "Gantenbein", but the project was halted, initially by differences between Frisch and the film director Erwin Leiser and then, it was reported, by the illness of Bernhard Wicki who was brought in to replace Leiser. The "Zürich – Transit" project went ahead in the end, directed by Hilde Bechart, but only in 1992 a quarter century later, and a year after Frisch had died.