Eye! Spoilers for the documentary ‘I Am Céline Dion’
‘I Am Celine Dion’, the 1h 40 minute documentary about the life of the Canadian singer, has just been released in Spain who won everyone over with ‘My Heart Will Go On’, ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’ and many other wonderful songs. As soon as it arrived, it debuted in the top 10 of the most watched content on Prime Video, which demonstrates the public’s curiosity to discover the most personal aspects of the interpreter.
Since triumphing at Eurovision back in 1988, Céline Dion became a global mega-artist, capable of filling the largest stadiums and causing lines at hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. But in this documentary ‘I am Céline Dion’ He sheds his star aura to show us his more human side.
The Grammy-winning singer, 56, has remained out of the spotlight since 2022. publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes stiffness and muscle spasms. At first she postponed her pending concerts, but then she had to withdraw from the stage altogether.
Directed by Irene Taylor, this documentary offers Dion’s point of view in his fight against the disease, going into specific details such as reviewing his medication with a nurse, the struggle to sing again, some moments of his hospitalization, and his grief in a normal physical therapy session.
In addition to the memories of her husband, René Angélil, who died of throat cancer in 2016, and the kinder moments she spent with her children, the documentary focuses on her illness, but we also see details of Céline Dion’s humor and her enormous passion for music. These are some of the most important moments from ‘I Am Céline Dion’.
1) Problems with vocal spasms
Celine Dion says in the documentary that although her diagnosis is relatively recent, she began experiencing symptoms of the disease 17 years ago. Apparently, when she warmed up her voice, it cracked and she couldn’t reach high notes, which “scared me a little bit.” He then explains that his lungs work fine for breathing, but the muscles around them sometimes tighten up and that prevents him from reaching high notes. “I don’t want people to hear that,” he says, crying. It was very hard for her to realize this because she did not want to disappoint anyone: “My voice was the conductor of my life,” she declares. “I don’t want people to hear that,” she adds through tears.
2) Drug dependence
Dion remembers that I took 80 to 90 milligrams of Valium a day to be able to function without feeling the symptoms. But sometimes, after putting on his costume and warming up, the medication would wear off before he went on stage, so he would take more. “I needed to take medication to function,” the singer recalls.
If her voice started to crack during a concert, Dion knew how to hide it. She would point the microphone at the audience and ask them to sing along. Sometimes she would even hit the microphone if her voice cracked while singing, to make it seem like it was the technical part’s fault. But she regrets this: “Now the lie weighs too much.”
3) Calls to the emergency room
Dion suffers two medical emergencies in the documentary. She is briefly seen on an emergency services stretcher at the beginning of the documentary, but her second SPS outbreak is recounted in full during an emotional and terrifying moment at the end of the documentary. Shortly after attending a recording session, Dion goes to physical therapy and notices that she is experiencing spasms in her foot.
While they try to remedy the problem, Dion’s condition worsens and he suffers an epileptic seizure. Lying on her side, the singer begins to cry as she is given two doses of nasal spray to relax her muscles. After administering the medication, her doctor confirms that “if she has spasms again, we’ll call 911,” but Dion slowly manages to recover once the medication begins to take effect.
“We could have turned off the camera, but we had been filming for eight months and Celine said to me, ‘Record everything.’ I thought, ‘I have to make sure this woman is breathing,’ so I put the headphones in my ear and listened and I couldn’t hear her breathing. I asked her if she was breathing. I could squeeze her hand. [del terapeuta]. I looked at my [director de fotografía] and we moved on. Taylor recalls that six months later he showed Dion a draft of the documentary. “She said, ‘I think this movie will help me.’ Then she said, ‘Don’t cut that scene.'”
4) The challenge of returning to the recording studio
One of the most exciting moments in the film is when Dion returns to the recording studio for the first time in years. Although it is a quiet and private setting, with dozens of candles lit behind her in the booth, you can feel her trying to dispel her nerves.
“Emotionally, it’s very difficult. In the next few minutes I’ll find strength, and if it breaks down and doesn’t work, there’s nothing I can do,” she says, sounding confident at first. But she grows increasingly frustrated as the session progresses. When she returns to the studio the next day, she is unhappy with what she has recorded and tries again. Fortunately, she is happier with the second day’s work.
5) Céline’s perseverance
Of course, the taste in your mouth when you see ‘I’m Céline Dion’ is the enormous determination of the Canadian singer. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she declares, and we don’t see her stop for a moment. Even when her physio tells her that overstimulation from singing and acting can be harmful to her, she launches into Wyn Starks’ power ballad “Who I Am.” Her final sentence in the film says it all: “I will not stop”.
WATCH DOCUMENTARY IN PRIME VIDEO
