NYT Mag: Cronenberg and "The History of Violence"

Those who still identify the director with the early movies that made his reputation may notice that "A History of Violence" is without a few of what have come to be regarded as signature Cronenberg elements. No one's head explodes, for instance, as in the most indelible image from the 1980's "Scanners"; nor are any new orifices into the human body proposed, as in "Videodrome" or "eXistenZ" or "Rabid" or "Crash." But even though his films branched out beyond so-called body horror (in which characters are terrorized not by some vanquishable monster but, much more formidably, by something inside them) two decades ago, his obsession with the body itself - what he calls "the primary fact of human existence" - persists.
"Even with the question of one's past," he says, "you're talking about the body because you're talking about genetics, about how much your physical form affects your philosophical form and your mental form. I think 'History of Violence,' like 'Spider,' is a very physically focused movie. That's why there are no big shootouts; the violence is all very intimate and close-up, hand to hand, face to face."