Both films are about artists. To Joy follows a violinist's crisis both as a musician and husband. Early in the film, the violinist, Stig (Stig Olin) gets drunk and insists that the only good art is totally serious. If Olin seems to be speaking on behalf of Bergman, Philip Strick's notes with the DVD explain how biographical To Joy is. In the role of Stig's mentor and conductor is Victor Sjostrom, who was occassionally Bergman's mentor in filmmaking. The film seems to reflect Bergman's uncertainties as a filmmaker. Stig's desire to be a soloist and to achieve greater professional recognition was not disimilar to Bergman's desire for greater artistic and commercial success. In the case of To Joy, the film was not released outside of Sweden until Bergman began achieving greater critical recognition, although it was never released theatrically in the U.S. Taking the use of music as a stand-in for film, Sjostrom reminds Olin that "music is the goal, not the means".

Summer Interlude is one of Bergman's films about memory. In this case, Nilsson plays Maria, a ballet dancer who receives the diary of her first lover. Most of the film is about Maria's meeting with Henrik, a university student, and the evolution from friendship to love. As he would do so in later films, Bergman contrasts the lives of people on and off stage. The linking of love and death is echoed in the featuring of Swan Lake as the ballet, expertly framed by cinematographer Gunnar Fischer. Both To Joy and Summer Interlude offer similar conclusions. In both films, the main character reflects on the tragedies of lost love, and affirm themselves by immersing themselves in their art.