The new Prime Video documentary I am: Celine Dion paints a gripping and heartbreaking portrait of one of history’s greatest voices struggling to sing again. Directed by Irene Taylor and now streaming, the film follows Celine Dion as she faces her diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome and fights to stop this rare disease from taking control of her body and her beloved voice. Here’s everything we learned from the film.
Dion has struggled with spasms for nearly two decades
The star first had problems with muscle spasms 17 years ago. She had noticed that her voice was higher and that she cracked more than usual the day after a show. In the film she points out that a singer’s voice is usually half a step higher after particularly heavy use. Her spasms were affecting the time it took to warm up before singing for several hours, a key part of her vocal health. The diagnosis then turned into Stiff-person syndrome, stiff person syndrome. A year before filming the documentary began, Dion suddenly couldn’t walk. At the time of the recordings, he was still unable to sing as the disorder causes muscle stiffness and spasms, further affecting the functioning of his vocal cords.
He took near-fatal doses of Valium to carry out his performances
To treat spasms affecting her voice, Dion took up to 90 mg of Valium a day which helped her walk and swallow. “I could have died,” she says of the near-fatal amount of drugs she ingested. But she Dion continued to struggle to perform, with the effects of the medicine sometimes wearing off before she even took the stage.
Even though he knew he had SPS, he had to lie to fans about why his shows were cancelled
It’s very clear throughout the documentary how seriously Dion takes being a touring artist. She breaks down in tears as she discusses the shows she had to cancel while secretly battling the SPS. At the time of her cancellation, the diva had yet to publicly reveal her diagnosis, choosing instead to tell people that she had sinus and ear problems. Celine also says that when she had difficulty on stage, she pointed the microphone towards the audience so that they would sing for her. “But now lying has become too burdensome,” she confesses.
He had an identity crisis
“Who is Celine Dion?”, she asks in tears at a certain point. “Celine Dion is a singer.” Since she had to stop performing live, Dion has struggled to separate who she is now from who she has been since she was a child: a world-famous artist. She recalls her experiences in recording studios over the years, when her vocal cords began to fail, horrified that she couldn’t give the people in the studio the Celine Dion they expected. “My voice has been the guiding thread of my life,” she explains.
He still hopes to return to the stage
Since the making of the documentary, it had already been two years since Dion had last performed, and she still wasn’t sure when or how she would be able to return to the stage again without all that effort. Throughout the film, however, viewers see that Dion has been working, even though her SPS keeps her largely confined to her home. You participated in the French dubbing of the film Love Again and appeared in a documentary about John Farnham. And then she’s continuing to exercise her vocal chords with the hope, one day, of being able to sing live again for her fans.
From Rolling Stone US
