History of Violence - Interpretation

Interpretation

The film's title plays on multiple levels of meaning. Film critic Roger Ebert says that Cronenberg refers to 3 possibilities:

(1) a suspect with a long history of violence; (2) the historical use of violence as a means of settling disputes, and (3) the innate violence of Darwinian evolution, in which better-adapted organisms replace those less able to cope. "I am a complete Darwinian," says Cronenberg, whose new film is in many ways about the survival of the fittest—at all costs.

Cronenberg did not come up with the title, however; that distinction belongs to John Wagner.