Inone I am: Celine DionIn many philosophical monologues, the eponymous global singing icon compares himself to an apple tree. In the past, Dion explains, she gave people apples – “the best ones, and I shine them” – a metaphor for the talents she shared with her huge global audience. But now, “my branches are starting to droop sometimes, they get crooked, and those branches are starting to produce a little less apples.” However, she continues, “there are still so many people in line.” Dion’s conclusion to this analogy is poignant: “I don’t want you to wait in line if I don’t have apples.”
The documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Irene Taylor and now streaming on Prime Video, shows the French-Canadian singer contemplating a life without enough income for her adoring audience. In December 2022, after several rounds of concert cancellations that year, the singer announced that she had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare autoimmune neurological disorder that can cause muscle spasms and stiffness. Since then, she has not performed in public and has only released a few new songs. I am: Celine Dion captures a portion of the time she took to rehabilitate herself (about a year before and some time after her announcement) — time, according to a title card, in which Dion rarely left the house.
I am: Celine Dion is intimate and moving, more a portrait of a superstar in his spare time than stardom itself. We see Dion, now 56, play with her three children (two of whom are now 13 and her older brother is 23) in the mansion they share in Las Vegas. She feeds her dog Bear (who, according to the pre-credits dedication, died between filming and release), takes care of a guinea pig with a syringe, makes her own coffee, and vacuums her own floor. She often goes without makeup and her gray hair has not been dyed. Contemporary documentaries about musical personalities are often indistinguishable from audiovisual press releases, but I am: Celine Dion is, in many ways, as far from a vanity project as you can get. Until she trademark nonsensewhich has been so captivating even to those who dislike its dramatic adult contemporary balladry, is turned into a whisper or presented via some vintage clips.
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For most of the doctor, we see subtle signs of his illness because, as Dion explains, “it’s not visible.” Some immobile fingers here, difficulty walking there, a little lost balance. But as Dion tells it and shows viewers, SPS has devastated the immaculate voice that has made her an undeniable attraction to millions of fans around the world since she debuted as a pre-teen more than 40 years ago. She explains in one scene that the rigidity of her chest in front of her lungs makes singing a challenge and then illustrates through an extended, raspy version of Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is.” After losing a shocking amount of notes to a vocalist who has been known for decades as a perfectionist powerhouse, Dion notes that, “It’s really hard for me to show this to you,” as she cries.
This leads straight to live footage of past performances of Dion annihilating her English-language song, “My Heart Will Go On” (from the 1997 blockbuster soundtrack). Titanic). Taylor and editors Richard Comeau and Christian Jensen routinely alternate between archival footage, in which Dion has delivered the seemingly impossible, and contemporary footage, in which the impossible is no longer within reach. This temporal rewind allows the audience to understand what is at stake here on a sensory level. Also featured are old home video footage of Dion pregnant with her first child, René-Charles Angélil, as she tries to find ballet flats in her wall-to-wall mobile shoe closet (she fails). There are images of her son’s birth and, surreally, news about her birth on the TV in her hospital room.
Somehow, I am: Celine Dion is a meditation on aging and what happens to stars whose abilities diminish over time, rare diagnosis or not. As tragic and debilitating as it is, Dion’s condition gives her a reason to externalize many feelings that many stars never want to acknowledge. No one wants to talk about what it means to be past your prime, but SPS forced Dion to contemplate just that. The documentary is also an excuse to set the record straight in much more depth than the 2022 announcement offered. “I can’t lie anymore,” says Dion, who attributed concert cancellations to sinus and ear infections as she struggled to understand what was happening to her health. She had been stricken with SPS symptoms for nearly two decades before her diagnosis. Although they could initially be hidden with a few strategic maneuvers (like extending the microphone toward the audience on particularly difficult notes), they eventually had an unmistakable impact on her voice, finally causing her to leave the stage.
Because of the general subtlety of her illness and Taylor’s light hand, the big, tragic moments are relatively few and far between – the sadness that permeates the film is of the chilling kind, the gradual realization, for both her and us, that Celine Dion that many know and love may never be the same artist again. The film takes a more explicit turn in its last act, when Dion records the title song for the 2023 romantic comedy in which she appeared, To love again. The singer, who has already managed to record three songs in one night, struggles to read some lines. She starts the session by saying, “If it breaks and it doesn’t work, there’s nothing I can do,” but clearly she is demoralized by her voice’s lack of cooperation. “I want to sing with joy. I want to sing without thinking. I want to sing without any problems along the way,” she says.
She is initially disappointed with the initial reproduction and decides to do better. And then, seemingly magically, she does. She finds a way to make the song work with her more fragile voice and nails several lines in a row. It’s a triumphant moment that’s made even stronger when that shot is played back for her. She is ecstatic with her performance.
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And then, she starts to spasm. A brutal, extended scene captures her in a full-blown seizure, face down on a table with a massage-style headrest, as her sports medicine therapist watches. For minutes, all she can do is whimper as she spasms, her hand firmly at her side. And then the lamentation begins. This level of raw vulnerability is unusual for stars of any echelon, let alone someone as trustworthy and immaculate (and consequently consumer-friendly on a global scale) as Dion. After the spasms pass, Dion talks about her embarrassment. Her therapist suggests that overstimulation of reproduction may have stimulated the episode. For someone so lively, someone who seems naturally excitable and whose job it is to be so, this presents a dilemma that the documentary leaves unresolved. How can Celine Dion be Celine Dion if she can’t get super excited?
No matter, she leaves with an air of determination: “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. But I won’t stop.” The documentary’s trick is to leave viewers with a sense of hope and a lack of firm narrative resolution. We know there are no guarantees in Dion’s future, but we also admire his will. A completely unhappy ending would I am: Celine Dion almost unbearable, but the refusal to tie things up underlines the relative harshness of the project. He hits the ground running with the kind of calculation suited to a perfectionist diva.
Before the New York premiere of I am: Celine Dion earlier this month, Dion previewed the apple story she tells in the documentary. “I don’t want you to wait in line any longer if I don’t have shiny apples for you,” she said wistfully to the crowd. But then, she said, she received a message from a fan that made her think differently. He said, “We’re not here for the apples. We are here for the tree.” The crowd roared in solidarity and Dion seemed genuinely moved by the prospect of being taken for who she is now. It may not be how she would prefer to be seen, but it is real.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
