Resumo

This paper focuses on the aesthetic, thematic, and biographical convergences between August Strindberg (1849-1912) and Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007), writers who shaped the way we understand drama in contemporary times. We examine how Strindberg broke with mass theatre, establishing the foundations of Swedish modernity. Influenced by Zola or Antoine, he favored a psychological immersion and a naturalistic approach, which was a fertile seed in Bergman’s mind. The main focus of the proposed analysis lies in the concept of Intima Teatern (Intimate Theatre) — coined by Strindberg in 1907 — and in its decisive influence on the filmmaker’s vision. According to Bergman, the playwright was a constant presence, in an intermittent state of attraction and repulsion; while denying a close, temperamental affinity, he nevertheless states that Strindberg “expressed things that I had experienced and for which I could not find words” (Björkman 1968). Bergman’s cinema inherits much more than a rejection of conventional staging. He also brings to his films set economy and psychological density, often enhanced by his mastery in the use of close-ups as a mirror of the soul. Based on our proposed approach, we conclude that the relationship between both writers, while marked by geographical affinity, transcends it. Bergman establishes himself as a successor who carries the legacy of Intimate Drama into one of the most significant bodies of work in the history of cinema, where existential anguish and the secrets kept in the depths of the human psyche become not only words, but also image and time.