I Met Céline Dion Last Night

And saw an early screening of her new documentary, I Am Céline Dion

In a rather staggering turn of events, last night I found myself face-to-face with THE Céline Dion. After announcing national screenings of her new Amazon Prime documentary I Am Céline Dion, word leaked out overnight before the screenings that she would be attending the New York City screening at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. 

After freaking out for a few minutes, I called my boyfriend to suggest he catch an earlier train, which he did, and we were en route to Lincoln Center shortly after 5pm, wearing complimentary Céline shirts. I bought 2 different shirts when she brought her Courage World Tour to Newark, NJ in March 2020. That show still remains her most recent live performance. 

My boyfriend was skeptical of whether or not we’d even get in (the screening was overbooked to ensure a full house), but upon our arrival the main line contained less than 100 people so we were all set. There was a second line with maybe 10-15 people in it, clearly some sort of VIP situation. 

Within 5 minutes of getting in line, a staffer walked down the line and slowed as he got to us, looking at our Céline shirts. He asked if we’d like to come with him to join the shorter line and be in the fan pit near the red carpet. “Absolutely,” I replied breathlessly. He put disposable purple bracelets on each of our wrists and off we went.

 We were escorted into Alice Tully Hall to a pen at the end of the champagne-colored carpet adjacent to a line of media outlets and photographers eagerly awaiting the arrivals of the stars attending the premiere. We were surrounded by other, similarly adorned Céline fans. A few apparent higher-level VIPs were also escorted in and placed in front of the fans, which, hey, you get in where you fit in. 

After about an hour, myself and the other fans released a collective gasp of excitement as Céline made her first appearance of the night, at the other end of the carpet. After about 10 minutes of photos and adjustments, she migrated to the press area and conducted interviews with the various outlets for about 45 minutes, alongside the film’s director, Irene Taylor, while we waited in unnerving anticipation. The publicist kept giving the group of fans a look that was not exactly one of warmth and excitement, so we worried that she might skip the fan area altogether. We couldn’t have been more wrong.  

As she got closer, one of the security guards approached us and preemptively asked us to not scream at her. If we screamed, she wasn’t going to come over to us and wouldn’t stick around. When she finished her interviews and walked our way, it was so eerily quiet you could hear a pin drop. Never has a group of eager fans maintained such respectful composure. But this was Céline Dion. And this was her first engagement with fans in years. And she was fragile. So everyone respected the ask. 

She took her time moving down the line, signing both the posters provided to us by event staff and copies of her many albums, as well as taking selfies with fans, and even singing a little bit. As she got to us I edged towards the front (I was two people deep, but we all agreed to make space for each other after we had our moment with Céline). I handed up my CDs and she began signing. I had a copy of Taking Chances for my boyfriend, and a single, the “To Love You More” dance mixes, which are my favorite. As she signed Taking Chances, she looked at me and, “you took a chance tonight. And you won.” A Live Photo on my iPhone captured the moment brilliantly. 

As she finished, I asked if I could take a selfie with her and my boyfriend, and she cheerfully agreed. My hand shook so much that out of the 5 photos, only one isn’t blurry, and thankfully we all look decent. All it took was one. She continued down the line and around the side. We all thanked her again and headed in to watch the film. They seated all the fans in the first few rows of the venue.

Inside Alice Tully Hall, director Irene Taylor introduced Céline, not only singing the praises of having a subject who wanted to be the sole person telling their story, but also explaining how the partnership developed into a deep and real friendship.

A tearful Céline expressed her gratitude to the crowd, especially the fans, and explained how important this project was to her. She seemed thrilled to be back on a stage, the biggest she’s been on in over 4 years. She also took time to acknowledge and thank her neurologist, who was in the crowd. 

‘I Am Céline Dion’ is not solely the story of Céline’s diagnosis and struggles with Stiff Person’s Syndrome (SPS), which, despite only being diagnosed in 2022, has been subtly affecting her for nearly two decades. This documentary is the story of the singer, woman, and mother, that intertwines these latest struggles and challenges into a career that dates back to the 1980’s. There’s footage of her as an infant and a child, surrounded by her family of 13 siblings in their native Quebec in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. She jokes about not having flats amidst a massive wall of shoes as she packs her bags for the hospital to deliver her first son, Rene-Charles, in 2001. There’s also a clip of her gleefully getting a look at her name in lights for the first time as a teenager in the 1980’s. 

She also takes the crew on a tour of her massive archive warehouse (which, for those who have seen season 3 of ‘Hacks,’ is extremely Deborah Vance coded), full not just of fashions, but of personal mementos. She’s even retained, preserved, and labeled artwork from when her kids were young. The woman sitting behind me blurted out, “she’s like a rich hoarder,” to which I craned my head backwards and jokingly chimed in, “you’re wrong for that, but you’re right.” What permeated from those scenes though, was a woman who isn’t just sentimental, but appreciative. She explained and praised the extensive work that went into certain garments to make them more accessible to her, and joked about how she’s such a shoe girl that she’ll wear any size available just to get ‘the’ shoe. 

Unsurprisingly, the scenes that revolve around SPS are the most difficult to watch. They open and close the film, as well as thread throughout. It’s surprising to learn that she’s been living with the effects of this condition for so many years. It’s only been in recent years though, that she received the diagnosis and symptoms reached new peaks. Early on in the film, a supercut of Céline performances comes to an abrupt halt as a somewhat-recent iPhone video shows her, seemingly paralyzed, being loaded onto a stretcher in her hotel room. Other similar supercuts show her stretching, jumping, dancing, and demonstrating her tremendous vocal capacity, and then she’s seen struggling to do basic stretches or demonstrating how limited her vocal capacity is at certain moments during production. 

The ending SPS scene is the most powerful moment. While having a routine physical therapy session, that director Irene Taylor happens to be on hand filming, Céline starts having a spasm. It starts small, just in one of her feet, but suddenly she loses control of her entire body. It’s harrowing, terrifying, and overwhelming to watch this ailment fully overtake her. She can’t speak, move, or even blink, but tears stream from her eyes as her team attempts to free her from the grips of the spasm. 

After a few nasal spray interventions, the spasm eventually passes, and she’s suddenly on her feet and back to herself. As she finishes up the session, her therapist puts on what he describes as their closing song, which gets Céline excited. Wyn Starks’ powerful coming out anthem “Who I Am,” plays from the therapist’s iPhone, and Dion sings along to every word. It wouldn’t be a surprise if a Céline version of this song appears eventually, because it sounds like a Céline song, and she sounds incredible singing along with it. 

The spasm shown near the film’s end seems to be connected to a successful recording session that’s also documented in the film, where she records the title track to the 2023 film she co-starred in, ‘Love Again.’ The first day she’s shown recording, she struggles to get her voice where she wants it. When she returns for a second day, she hits her stride and finds joy in delivering the vocal she’s striving towards, leaving her fearful of how she can return to the stage if this is the result of a satisfactory performance. 

That fear seems to be a passing thing, though, and gets replaced by determination and resilience. She misses her fans, and wants to get back to performing. “If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she proclaims early on in the film about her potential return to the stage. On the red carpet last night, she seemed to confirm that progress had been made and a new Las Vegas residency was in the works. After the film concluded, she reappeared on stage to a standing ovation before thanking the audience again and slipping out. 

Above all else, Dion’s public battle with this rare condition will raise tremendous awareness and hopefully help to create pathways to treatments and maybe even one day, a cure. The newly established Céline Dion Foundation has already pledged two million dollars to support research for the condition. 

All in all, it was a tremendous evening and a thrill to see Céline back on her feet and engaging with the world again. She seemed equally thrilled to be there, too. And it’s a night that neither myself nor my boyfriend will be forgetting anytime soon. In fact, we’re both still buzzing about it, and I haven’t stopped listening to Céline since we departed Alice Tully Hall after the screening ended.

‘I Am Céline Dion’ premieres on Amazon Prime on June 25.