Director David Cronenberg occasionally steps out in front of the camera, and he has 26 acting credits including roles in Jason X and The Stupids.  According to Yahoo! Movies, he’ll be working with slightly more elevated material by joining the adaptation of Don DeLillo‘s Body Art.  Directed by Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love), Isabelle Huppert stars as “an actress/performer of sorts grieving over a lost lover who encounters a mysterious stranger living in her house (all of which may or may not be literally happening).”  The film also stars Denis Lavant, who wowed audiences with his excellent performance(s) in Holy Motors.

This is the second pairing of Cronenberg and DeLillo.  Cronenberg’s most recent film was an adaptation of DeLillo’s 2003 novel, Cosmopolis.  It looks like Cronenberg’s next directing project will be Maps to the Stars, especially since Eastern Promises 2 and a remake of The Fly are now kaput.

We’d like to see all love stories end happily ever after.  The “ever after” part would presumably mean the two characters die happily in their sleep at the exact same time.  However, much like love at first sight, this kind of ever after is somewhat rare.  Instead, the end of a loving relationship is likely filled with grief and loneliness.  Michael Haneke‘s Amour looks at the slow, painful decay of a marriage where we’re forced to question how love can endure when a loved one cannot.  The experience of watching his movie is exceedingly agonizing, and is more horrific than any film featuring a lunatic with a chainsaw.  And yet for all of its brutal honesty, Amour can’t help but feel obvious, which makes the emotional impact feel more exploitative than revelatory.

Two new clips have gone online for director Michael Haneke’s 2012 Palme d’Or-winning drama, Amour.  The touching story centers on a married couple in their eighties and the struggle they endure as each others’ mental and physical health begins to fail.  I haven’t seen the film, but if these two incredibly poignant and emotional clips are any indication, then Amour certainly has more awards in its near future.

Amour, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert, opens domestically in limited release on December 19th.  Hit the jump to see the new clips. 

Earlier today, the Toronto International Film Festival released their spectacular line-up for this year, and the festival has now released new images and synopses to from the movies playing at the fest.  Among the films with new images and synopses are:

• Dormant Beauty (Directed by Marco Bellocchio) Starring Isabelle Huppert, Toni Servillo, Alba Rohrwacher, Michele Riondino, Maya Sansa, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Brenno Placido, Fabrizio Falco, Gian Marco Tognazzi, and Roberto Herlitzka
• Dreams for Sale (Directed by Nishikawa Miwa) Starring Matsu Takako, Abe Sadavo, and Tanaka Lena
• English Vinglish (Directed by Gauri Shinde) Starring Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou, and Priya Anand
• Everybody Has a Plan (Directed by Ana Piterbarg) Starring Viggo Mortensen

Hit the jump to check out the images and synopses.  The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 – 16th.

Earlier this year, we reported on Ned Benson‘s fascinating double-feature The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby.  The film show how a married couple in New York City deals with an emotional, life-altering experience, from two different perspectives. The perspective of the husband (James McAvoy) is seen in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him, while the story of the wife (Jessica Chastain) is told in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her.  The conflict arises when the wife tells her New York restaurateur husband that she wants to go back to college.  I assume her studies will examine the origins of isolated people.

Today, Screen Daily [via The Playlist] is reporting that Viola Davis, Bill Hader, William Hurt, Isabelle Huppert, Ciarin Hinds, and Jess Weixler have joined the cast.  There’s currently no word on who these actors will play or if they’ll appear in one or both movies, but Eleanor Rigby definitely has a terrific line-up.  Filming is currently underway in New York.

Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Haneke is set to reunite with his Piano Teacher starring Isabelle Huppert in the simply titled These Two. The film, also starring Jean Louis Triningant (My Night at Maud’s) and Emmanuelle Riva (Blue) is set to focus on the “humiliation of the physical breakdown in the elderly” per the The Playlist.

The film was previously set to go in production a year ago but Haneke canceled the project due to a similarity with recently released films Away from Her and The Barbarian Invasions; although from the brief synopsis given, I fail to see how Haneke’s film could have anything in common with the sweet Sarah Polley film or the satirical classist comedy other than that all three star older people. Nevertheless, it’s great to see perhaps the most hateful, sadistic filmmaker working today get behind the camera once again. There is no greater experience than inviting a group of people over to watch a movie and then plopping in one Haneke’s classics (I’d suggest Benny’s Video or The Piano Teacher or, for maximum discomfort, the original Funny Games). Watching your guests’ fresh welcoming faces distort into images of disgust and shock and outrage is a thing of beauty in and of itself – something I’m sure Haneke would approve of.