‘I Am: Celine Dion’ director Irene Taylor: ‘I think Celine was looking for someone she could tell her secret to’
“I did not know Celine before this film,” reveals Irene Taylor, the director of Amazon MGM Studios’ documentary “I Am: Celine Dion.” “In fact, I was a little bit surprised when a producer contacted me who had worked closely with her and her management in the past. She said she was thinking of me for this possible film that Celine was open to. I was surprised because my films are very much character driven, but I had never focused on someone with as much celebrity as Celine has.”
“I Am: Celine Dion” is a raw and honest behind-the-scenes look at the iconic superstar’s struggle with Stiff Person Syndrome, a life-altering illness. Watch the video interview above.
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The singer hid her illness from the public for years, and Taylor says, “I think Celine was looking for someone she could tell her secret to. That’s really what the film is about, this unfortunate lie that she had been telling the world.” The movie was filmed two years ago and the director states, “It would have been out of bounds just to do a straight-forward biopic when her body was going through this tumultuous detox off of medications. She was trying to figure out what was happening with her vocal cords. She was also at home with her children, and she was not used to having that kind of time. It was very clear that the film needed to focus on this exceptional period of her life.”
Dion began performing before she was even a teenager, so the singer didn’t necessarily know how to step out of that role. Taylor used the rest of her life and career achievements for context and also to “brighten up the film a little bit.” She says, “I wanted the film to have some balance between the struggle and that essential talent and essential joyful person Celine is at heart.”
One of the most difficult days of shooting is shown in the film, when Dion appears to have a seizure while receiving therapy for her illness. “We call it a medical episode because her body just goes into this rigid stance, and we didn’t know if she was breathing,” Taylor explains. “Her physical safety was paramount at first, but it only took us 30 seconds to realize, there were two people in the room, her bodyguard and her physical therapist, who had a protocol given to them by doctors of exactly what to do. We kept filming and we decided to do that because Celine had told us, ‘Don’t shy away. Always film and I’ll tell you to stop.’ Celine never asked me to see the footage. It is her truth.”
Taylor’s feature debut, “Hear and Now,” won a Peabody and was followed by “Beware the Slenderman,” “Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements,” and “The Final Inch,” which brought her an Oscar nomination.
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