The 5th of July Ingmar Bergman wrote in his workbook: "I've finished the screenplay, although not without a fair amount of inner resistance. I baptized it The Touch. As good a name as any other. Now I'm going to take time off until August 3, when we begin the preparations in earnest. I feel depressed and ill at ease. I'd be happy to drop this film."

For his own sake, he should perhaps have done so. Because The Touch is one of the few films with which Bergman is completely dissatisfied. As he puts it in Images: My Life in Film:

"The intention was to shoot The Touch in both English and Swedish. In an original version that doesn't seem to exist anymore, English was spoken by those who were English-speaking and Swedish by those who were Swedes. I belive that it just possibly was slightly less unbearable than the totally English-language version, which was made at the request of the Americans.

The story I bungled so badly was based on something extremely personal to me: the secret life of someone who loves becomes gradually the only real life and the real life becomes an illusion.

Bibi Andersson felt instinctively that this part did not suit her. I convinced her to do it anyhow, since I felt I needed a loyal friend in this foreign production. Besides, Bibi has a good command of English. The fact that she became pregnant after having accepted the part threw a terrible monkey wrench into what seemed, on the surface at least, a matter-of-fact, methodical production set. Cries and Whispers began to make its way forward during this depressing period."

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