Director Ingmar Bergman wrote the teleplay for Scenes From a Marriage over three months, drawing on his personal experiences, including his relationship with Ullmann, his unhappy, eventually dissolved marriages to Käbi Laretei and Gun Ilagberg, and the marriage of his parents, Karin and Erik Bergman.
Ullmann compared performing in Scenes From a Marriage to appearing in a documentary, saying she "felt very connected to the role."