“I Am: Celine Dion” (2024) is an authorized documentary about the titular French-Canadian singer told in her own words and was shot in her Nevada home. Director Irene Taylor uses archival footage from Dion’s home videos, archival news segments, concert footage and other appearances. It chronicles her fight to reclaim her life and overcome Stiff Person Syndrome so she can return to the stage and do what she loves.
Let’s get the cynicism out of the way. A soundtrack album is being released before the documentary and will include thirteen of Dion’s greatest hits and cellist and composer Redi Hasa’s score, which in a New York appearance, before the screening, Taylor described as Dion’s spirit musical instrument as a play on the phrase spirit animal. While promoting “I Am: Celine Dion,” the artist has revealed that she is working on a new show in Las Vegas. The film shows her slowly returning to the recording studio and making video appearances. Dion is a tremendous success, but she has not appeared on stage since 2019 in London. Is this documentary a soft launch and/or a way to refresh the coffers, i.e. an infomercial? Well, if it is, let’s get more infomercials of this gorgeous quality that feel so raw and intimate.
Usually the downside of having so much unfettered access means that the documentary feels like it pulls punches or is treating its famous subject with kid gloves. While Dion is in charge of the narrative, and Taylor’s technique could never be confused with a newsmagazine in which Barbara Walters could be swapped out for the invisible, unheard interviewer, Taylor’s technique is radical for showing uninterrupted pain and grief instead of looking away or just aiming for inspirational. Dion is a one in a million, and so is this disease, but while the latter is winning, Dion is still a formidable though mournful foe. Even if you are completely disinterested in Dion, if you are a human being who has not found a way to achieve immortality, “I Am: Celine Dion” is still for you. It is about coming to the realization that your identity is separate from the parts of you that you love most and others value and how one processes that loss. Dion has everything and still faces the possibility of losing yet she is still herself even when she does not feel like it.
If you are a Celine Dion fan, then “I Am: Celine Dion” is required viewing. All movies about a musical artist depend on the quality of the music, and with Dion’s complete cooperation and granting of access, Taylor delivers decades worth of great performances that reflect how Dion dramatically changed through the years without ever taking a visible misstep. It is worth watching for the music alone, and the onstage and offstage showmanship is quite impressive. Plan to live vicariously through Dion’s spacious mansion as she saunters the halls perfectly coiffed and attired though ill. You will gag over the neatly arranged sock drawer, and wide array of shoes. Dion even grants Taylor a tour of a warehouse with all the outfits that she wore in public and her family mementoes. If she or her children wanted, they could easily open a museum dedicated to her life, and she would get her wish that all her belongings would live on.
Even sick, Dion’s vitality, playfulness and sense of humor shine through. As she exits the warehouse, she pokes fun at herself for buying multiples of the same article of clothing. Her emotions are infectious, which means that you may suddenly find yourself crying at different points in “I Am: Celine Dion” when she tearfully confides her quotidian physical struggles.
Taylor’s visual style permits Dion a degree of privacy by allowing her to dart in and out of the frame, always dynamic. During the seated interviews, the camera is unblinking, unfiltered and focused, but not harsh. The lighting is superb and soft but does not hide the toll that this disease has taken. The archival footage of better times punctuates how changed Dion is from the person whom we knew. Taylor’s camera is unblinking during the denouement when after a moment of triumph, her body succumbs to overstimulation, and Dion allows Taylor to show what a physical crisis looks like as she is rendered silent, immobile, rigid and tearful. It is devastating and hard to watch, but valuable and relatable for anyone who has been saddled with a physical ailment which makes you lose control of your body.
Dion did make one request from Taylor, and Taylor complies. Dion did not want any talking heads telling her life story, which means a lot of people may be left with a lot of unanswered questions. The documentary is not comprehensive or addresses issues that Dion has never entertained in public. “I Am: Celine Dion” does not show any image of her deceased husband or her birth family until the middle. It is not a chronological documentary, and it only tells the story of her childhood and family life in glowing, nostalgic terms. In an interview with Walters, Dion countered gambling addiction rumors about her husband, Rene Angelli, by saying, “Rene is a gambler. Of course he is, and I’m glad he is. Because he mortgaged his house to make me do my first album when I was 12 years….He is a gambler, but he is smart.” Dion has only publicly praised her husband, and Angelli may be her only romantic partner. In this era, even though they claimed to start dating when she was nineteen, and he was thirty-eight years old, the silence is deafening considering what is known about grooming. Unlike artists like Mariah Carey who married their managers and as they matured, gradually recognized the power disparity and controlling dynamic with potential for abuse, Dion never had a similar epiphany at least in public. “I Am: Celine Dion” makes a poignant parallel between Angelli’s images with Dion’s cover of Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” as she fights for her health with no adult personal support. Her birth biological family is only shown in home videos, and other than her sons, she only receives support from people that she pays. While this style of coping is completely valid, and it is easy to miss, the silence on these two issues is deafening if you are familiar with her life and expecting more. It does not mean her family is not supporting her or that she has not considered the problematic nature of her only romantic relationship, but it remains private and not for public consumption. Everyone has a right to privacy. Dion and Taylor have given her fans plenty.
“I Am: Celine Dion” was likely filmed during the height of the pandemic, and the people who work for her wear masks except during the denouement where it is more of a suggestion or an accessory. While the gentleman sweetly supports Dion during her convulsions and calls her boss like a reassuring term of endearment, that nose and mouth are still exposed putting Dion in more danger. Welcome to the US where even top dollar can only get you so much compliance to science and health theater.
If “I Am: Celine Dion” screening had a flaw, it was missing English subtitles when the Quebecois singer speaks French. Maybe they will appear when the documentary airs on Prime Video. Dion is overall harder on herself than anyone else will be. After hearing her sing in the recording studio for the soundtrack of “Love Again” (2023), even the outtakes are better than most people on their best day. Even if she could not sing, a fan’s encouragement is correct, “We’re not here for the apple. We’re here for the tree.”