The documentary I Am: Celine Dion gives viewers a full picture of the singer’s emotional and physical struggles with stiff person syndrome / YouTube screenshot
More and more has been coming out about Celine’s highly anticipated documentary, I Am: Celine Dion. As far as documentaries go, it’s setting a new bar for personal content shared. One particularly memorable sequence of scenes shows Dion championing through a performance of “River Deep – Mountain High” by Tina Turner, only to then be shown strapped to a gurney, tended to by medics.This was all by careful design, explained director Irene Taylor, who won the Peabody Award for Hear and Now and received an Emmy nomination for Beware the Slenderman. At least, it was by design after the fact. She just happened to be filming when the personal health crisis kicked up; but there was never a debate about not including such grim health scares.“We were just trying to figure out what was happening,” shared Taylor. “And as Celine likes to say, ‘do not flinch.’ And we did not flinch. We knew enough to shoot now and talk about it later … but there was never a question of whether or not we would include it. I did not show the film to Celine until it was done and the first thing she said to me was, ‘I think this film will help me’ and after a pause, ‘Don’t cut anything away from that scene.’ I think she felt validated and said, ‘Now people will understand.’”