Filmmaker channels Dion from age 5 to 50
Valerie Lemercier wasn’t all that serious when she pledged during an interview to make her next film about Celine Dion. But the more the French comedian and filmmaker kept thinking about it, the more the pop diva’s life spoke to her.
“I always loved love stories,” she says via videoconference from France.
Borrowing liberally from Dion’s life, career and marriage to her decadesolder manager, Rene Angelil, with just enough creative detours to claim artistic license, Lemercier directs herself in the musical drama “Aline” as Aline Dieu, who goes from the youngest of 14 in a closeknit French Canadian clan to world famous chanteuse on the Last Vegas strip.
Lemercier’s Dieu commands the screen with numbers pulled from Dion’s songbook, including “Let’s Talk About Love,” “All By Myself ” and, yes, “My Heart Will Go On.”
“Celine couldn’t do a show without singing that song, which is a small jail,” says Lemercier, who mounted an exhaustive search to find a Dion vocal double in singer Victoria Sio, and lends a humorous spin to the “Titanic” moment in Aline’s fictional rise to stardom. “People want that one.”
The film grabbed headlines out of Cannes last year thanks to Lemercier’s many auteurist conceits, not the least of which is that the 58-year-old writer, director and star portrays Aline from age 5 to 50.
Using George Meliesinspired camera tricks and face-shrinking VFX, she plays the future superstar as an awkward young girl and gawky teenager with a booming voice that can’t be denied.
Later, as a young adult, Aline falls for her manager and future husband, Guy-claude Kamar (Sylvain Marcel).
The performance earned
Lemercier her third Cesar Award, this one for lead actress and nominations for best film, director and original screenplay (with Brigitte Buc), in addition to “Aline” nominations for supporting actor (Marcel), supporting actress (Danielle Fichaud) and sound.
This interview with Lemercier has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: What did you want to convey about Celine Dion in film? A:
I wanted to make an homage. I wanted to say that I love Celine. I want to say that I admire Celine and Rene, of course, and her Quebecois family. I have a lot of similitude with the younger Celine. I was from a big family with a lot of kids. … I’m often asked why I wanted to play it young. I didn’t want to play
it only as a glamorous star. I wanted also to play the growing pains of adolescence.
Q: How do you view the differences between Celine Dion and Aline Dieu? A:
Aline is between
Celine and me. Could be “Valine”... maybe Aline is more French if you speak very well with a Quebecois accent — you can say that mine is not very good. I decided to (focus on) the love story because for me, it’s the most important thing in life. When I see old movies that I’ve made, I remember where I had been, was I in love, who was my lover at that moment — it’s the only thing you remember at the end. For me, it’s the most important thing.
Q: The age difference between Celine and Rene was controversial. How did you decide to handle that in “Aline?” A:
If I cast a little girl, a 12-year-old girl, I think it would be more of a problem for the movie. In France, kid (actors) are very protected. But remember, we (Lemercier and Marcel) are each 55. I mean yes, the first relation began when she was 20. And at 20 you are able to choose. She was in love first. And I think you can see that in the movie that Rene at first doesn’t want anything to do with a love story.
Q: You portray Aline at age 5, 12 and into adulthood using camera tricks and VFX. Did that seem like a risky choice to anyone else?
A: My DP (Laurent Dailland) said to me, “You can do that in theater — onstage maybe, but not in the movie — it would not be possible.” But that DP made a movie called “Didier” by Alain Chabat that has a French actor playing a dog! I said, “You made ‘Didier!’ That guy can be a dog, I can be a little girl.” I’m known to perform solo on stage playing different characters, women, men, children. I’m always happy to play little girls, and maybe when I am 80, I will continue to do it.
Q: The songs you selected from Celine’s repertoire speak to what Aline is feeling at each moment in her life, throughout the film. A:
Every song is a step of the love story. First for the mother, of course, and then for (Guy-claude) — is it love, is it amity? I wanted all the songs to speak about the love story and how she is in love. Hearing a lot of songs made me discover a lot of the beautiful songs from Quebec or from the U.S.A. that I didn’t know. I wanted one that I couldn’t have … “Power of Love.”
Q: The way you use “My Heart Will Go On” is funny. A lot of people don’t realize how she felt about her biggest hit. A:
She didn’t like this song, and James Cameron said, “I don’t want a song in the movie!” What you hear in (“Titanic”) is the demo. Sometimes she laughs about it. For me, when she sang that song perfectly, it was at the Oscars in ’98 with that navy blue dress. She was so strong, so beautiful. It’s really the golden age of Celine’s voice.
Q: Some of her family members have openly criticized the film for taking license with her life story. Does it matter to you what they think? A:
Of course. It was very sad for me because (of ) what they said, it’s the contrary of all I’ve done. But the family is big. I have some other messages from other people of the family who were very happy with the movie.
Q: Do you wish that you had met Celine before making “Aline?” A:
I knew that if (we) met, it would only be for two minutes. I had a pass to go to her show, and I didn’t use it because I was sure we would not be alone. We would have three seconds to take a picture with Celine, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to meet, but not in that circumstance. Of course, I know that Celine doesn’t want to see anything about her. She reads nothing. It’s the same for my movie. Her Quebecois manager said she doesn’t care, and the French one said she would cry. If it was me, I don’t know if I would jump to see the movie. But I hope that one day she will be able to see it and to see how much I love her.