I Am: Celine Dion

Paris Olympics 2024 opened this week, and the opening ceremony created a lot of Internet buzz, like not being held in a stadium, controversial themes of certain performances.

To me though, the most mesmerizing part is Celine Dion’s performance.

The previous weekend, I was randomly on Amazon Prime Video looking for something to watch, and “I Am: Celine Dion” was the top promoted program. It’s been that way for some time now, but this time I clicked into it.

The opening scene is Celine recording a public announcement that she has stiff-person syndrome (SPS), and can’t perform any more. I was immediately captured.

I first came to know Celine when the movie Titanic came out towards the end of my college years, and the song “My Heart Will Go On” was everywhere in China. Celine’s voice was so clean that it just hit the heart. We used to joke that “‘My Heart Will Go On’ makes my heart stop, but thankfully my heart will go on after the song ends”.

A few years later, Celine announced she’d start residency in Las Vegas (which wasn’t a popular trend for singers back then), and we went to see her live performance in Caesars Palace. Besides her amazing songs, what surprised me the most was how much the venue was especially adapted to her songs. That was the first time I got a deeper understanding of Las Vegas entertainment.

For the next 15 years, with kids and work, I didn’t closely follow her. I would still hear all her new songs on radio though, since her slightly-French-accented English and her vocal chords were just so distinctive.

Until a couple of years ago, I learned from news that she had paused all her performances (residency and tour), since she’s been diagnosed with the rare SPS (about one in a million people), and will gradually lose her muscle movements.

The rest of the details were filled by the “I Am: Celine Dion” documentary. Celine didn’t hold back in this documentary. She was very transparent, and invited her audience to take a close look at her day-to-day life. Her dedication to her music, her struggle with her voice, her love for her kids, her affection for her staff; all of that was clearly demonstrated in this documentary.

But the most unusual piece is an unscripted recording of her seizure episode.

Celine was trying to record a new song. Her voice wasn’t fully ready yet. She recorded a few takes on day 1. Day 2, she came back to listen to the previous day’s recordings, and didn’t like them. She wanted to try again. She practiced on the spot, and made a few attempts at recording. Then she was late to her doctor’s session.

Walking in, she first apologized to the doctor for being late. She told the doctor she was trying to record a new song, and felt happy. The doctor asked her how her SPS symptoms had been, and she said she was having a spasm at the moment. Doctor explained that her brain was stimulated by the song practice and recording, and the stimuli weren’t properly released to the muscles. He asked Celine to lie down on a massage bed, and tried to massage her hand muscle. Right at that moment, Celine went into a seizure. The doctor called in an assistant to help him, applied some nasal sprays, and recorded his treatment.

All of that was captured by the camera. There was a moment the doctor even asked Celine whether she wanted the camera to be turned off, Celine gave a signal that it’s okay. This entire episode was genuinely recorded, and shown in the documentary.

It’s Celine’s choice to show her extreme vulnerability with the rest of the world. I can clearly see many of such deliberate decisions throughout this documentary. She didn’t choose to hide, and vulnerability brings trust.

As an audience sitting in front of my TV, I felt immensely close to her, and couldn’t help but admire her courage and fighting spirit. I know SPS has no cure, but I sincerely hope the doctor and medication can delay the inevitable, and at least in the near term bring her back to the level to perform again.

Then, just a few days later, I was completely surprised to see her perform live at the Eiffel Tower. After the performance, Kelly Clarkson couldn’t hold back her emotions and called Celine “a voice athlete”. If I hadn’t just seen the documentary a few days before, I would have just listened to her song, and probably thought her voice is no longer as pristine as 20 years ago. But with the documentary as the anchor, all I felt was joy that the doctor and medication indeed has brought her back to the level to perform again. Celine didn’t need to say yes to the performance invitation, but she must have pushed very hard to be ready.

In the rain, on top of the Eiffel Tower, I listened to “Hymne A L'Amour”, but I witnessed “My Heart Will Go On”.