One more text on Céline

Nothing is ever “normal” with Celine Dion.

Her extraordinary performances, her interviews where she goes off the rails all the time, the total adoration of her fans, Quebec’s obsession with her every appearance, and even this very rare disease, stiff person syndrome (SPR ), which I had never heard of before she revealed that she suffered from it. Because of course it had to be a disease that affects one person in a million, I moaned when I heard the news.

The release of the documentary I am: Celine Diondirected by Irene Taylor, could only be an event, which I did not want to miss, despite the impression that I was not going to learn anything new because she multiplied the “exclusive” interviews before the premiere of the film. And what more can I add when almost everyone has talked about it?

But I find what she is trying to tell us very important, which goes beyond her illness. That is, we will have to mourn the “voice of the Good Lord”, but not yet Céline – and I hope so, Good Lord.

Maybe it’s even this Céline I was waiting for. The one who speaks to us sincerely about her illness, but also about the magic of music and its sharing, which does not come down to a note that is impossible to hold.

I saw the documentary the night of the premiere in Montreal at the Théâtre Maisonneuve while Céline was at the New York screening.

For almost two hours, I was captivated. I laughed, I cried, and my heart broke, twice; by seeing Céline’s SPR crisis and learning of the death of Bear, this friendly, slightly obese dog who remained quiet alongside the solitary star, to whom the film is dedicated. A little sentence in the credits that finished me off. Not the dog anymore, for the love! When she seems so alone, surrounded only by employees and her ungrateful middle-aged twins.

It was very strange, the first in Montreal, in fact. With the red carpet, stars, admirers, drag queens, photographers, journalists and part of the Dion family. At the entrance, there was something festive, but at the exit, everyone was silent and upset – we even had to interrupt the film and ask if there was a doctor in the theater, because spectators had discomfort.

Throughout the documentary, I thought of my mother. How was she going to take it to see HER Céline in this state of extreme vulnerability? We have never seen her other than in full possession of her means.

This scene where we see her in the middle of an SPR crisis haunted me until the release of the documentary on Amazon Prime on June 25, which was an opportunity to invite my mother home, because she is not subscribed to this platform and absolutely wanted to see it.

I wasn’t too worried about her feeling unwell. My mother had seen just about every possible illness, having worked as a caregiver for the elderly for a long time, a job that had broken her back forever. I was more worried about a flood of tears.

I bought a box of preventative Kleenex, because when my mother starts crying, she is unstoppable. And she has loved Celine since her debut, I wrote a long column about it when she launched her tour. Courage in 2019.

Read the column “Céline, my mother and me”

In this column, I was surprised that Celine never went through purgatory or the hell of drugs, like many of my favorite artists (some of whom died too young), and remained at the top almost all her life, which forced admiration, whether you were a fan or not. In this film, she tells us that for that, the price to pay is very high, and I am not surprised.

Learning that the first symptoms started 17 years ago was a bit of a shock. For almost two decades, Céline had to perform without knowing what she had.

I always thought she was pushing her machine to the limit, so I thought it was normal for her to get sick, to get exhausted and to deteriorate as she got older. Like those top athletes crippled with arthritis at a young age to win medals, when they should be embodying great shape.

I laughed when Céline admits to envying people who smoke, drink, party, and who are capable, with their hoarse voices, of bringing crowds to their feet as much as she is in her monastic discipline. “I drink water and I sleep 12 hours a night,” she says, even though we know that she underwent periods of silence lasting weeks to protect her “instrument.” It’s true that it’s totally unfair that she ended up with such a diagnosis having been so wise, I even read fans on X writing that it should have happened to Puff Daddy instead.

Céline says that sometimes she would have liked to be “a guy who rocks” and when she tells her sons that she has traveled around the world several times without having seen anything, they believe her.

“No one has given so much to their audience,” says my mother, for whom the saddest thing today is that Céline was not really able to enjoy life.

We don’t mention it too much, but people who have RPS don’t become centenarians. By discovering in this film Céline’s warehouse filled with memories, which is not far from resembling that of Citizen Kanewe say to ourselves that there is enough to create a museum, but I wonder what its “rosebud” is.

After this documentary, I definitely fell into Céline’s camp, and I will follow her to the end. I’ll go wherever you will goCéline, as you sang it, whether it was punk, rock’n’roll, rap, country or Gregorian chant.

Anyway, the only thing that stood in the way of my admiration were those performance songs where she pierced my eardrums. Still, I couldn’t believe it when she hit the highest note ofAll by Myself, as if she scored a goal in the Stanley Cup final, a feat that she had to repeat at every performance, too numerous, which no longer has anything to do with the joy of music.

“I’m always going to love you, Céline!” my mother shouted in front of the TV, when the singer wondered if her audience would accept that she was moving on to another register, another repertoire, because her voice had changed and would never be the same again. She who dreamed of playing Maria Callas, her idol, on film…

Personally, I always secretly hoped for a jazz album from her, after discovering her virtuosity on Two, composed by Jean-Jacques Goldman, who used the voice of Charlemagne’s diva differently, but that didn’t seem to be in the plans of her husband and manager.

My mother didn’t just cry, she was terrified by the end of the documentary. “It’s awful,” she said, before adding, lucidly: “We will have seen his last big show.” Indeed, in 2019, at the Bell Centre, where we sang I’m alive with Céline, the last show I saw with my mother.

Then there was the pandemic, the cancellations, the PRS diagnosis, my mother’s condition which deteriorated, and now this documentary. As she struggled to get up from my couch to return home by paratransit – I’ve seen my mother suffer from back pain for at least 15 years – she joked: “I’m like Céline, basically. »

The show must go on, certainly. But it’s not over until it’s over either, and Céline has no intention of giving up, until she’s given up on. Which, in my humble opinion, will never happen, and certainly not in Quebec. I hope that she will not inflict the opening of the Paris Olympic Games on herself, as a persistent rumor has it, but if so, it will undoubtedly be the most anticipated performance of these Games, and I will obviously be there. With my mother.