‘Don’t cut down that scene’: ‘I Am: Celine Dion’ director on capturing singer’s seizure

“This is by far the biggest crowd I’ve had in a few years,” said Celine Dion onstage at Lincoln Center last week. “I really just tried to look at the person in front of me and what was happening.” The documentary, now streaming on Prime Video, uses clips of performances and interviews from Dion’s 40-year career and traces the basics of her biography — beginning with her childhood in Quebec, where she was the youngest of 14 children, and then her crossover journey from French-language teen star to a chart topper with power ballads like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On.” Weaving archival material with contemporary footage of Dion opening up about her health struggles, “I Am: Celine Dion” shows the singer at her most vulnerable, both emotionally and physically. Director Irene Taylor on her approach to filming Celine Dion, shown in a scene from the documentary: “I really just tried to look at the person in front of me and what was happening.” Taylor followed Dion for about a year, spending several days with her a month, and found her brave and authentic — qualities that she hopes come through in the film. We could have turned the camera off, but we had been filming for eight months at that point, and Celine said, “Film everything.” I thought to myself, “I gotta make sure this woman’s breathing,” so I just pushed my headphones into my ear, and I listened, and I could not hear her breathing.