Celine Dion Had a Medical Emergency. The Camera Kept Rolling

This article contains spoilers.

Celine Dion welcomed the cameras. For the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” (streaming on Amazon Prime Video), the singer set no restrictions on what to film.

What follows is a painfully intimate portrait of a pop star’s body fighting itself. Dion announced in 2022 that she had stiff person syndrome, an autoimmune neurological condition that causes progressive stiffness and severe muscle spasms. During a session with her physical therapist that was being filmed for the documentary, Dion has a seizure. The camera continued to roll throughout the medical crisis.

In an interview via video call on Monday, the director, Irene Taylor, discussed shooting the documentary and why Dion’s emergency was included in the final cut. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How far into preproduction did you learn about Dion’s illness?

I spoke with her at length, and I did not know she was ill. We were in the middle of the pandemic and I didn’t think twice about her being at home. Most of us were, and performers around the world were sort of out of commission temporarily.

We got to a place where we agreed to make the film. It was several weeks after that mutual decision that her manager asked me for a call. I figured it must be something serious because we got on the phone that day, and he told me that Celine was sick and that they didn’t know what it was. We were filming several months before there was a definitive diagnosis.

After getting the diagnosis, was the conversation on the table to stop filming?

Definitely not. When I realized that a) she had a problem with no name and b) when I actually started filming I could see how her body looked different, her face looked different, I was able to focus. The iris of my perspective got much smaller.