The truth of the false in the scenario of “Aline” of Valérie Lemercier – Slate.fr

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When Valérie Lemercier began to write the screenplay for her fiction freely inspired by the life of Celine Dion, she named her idol using her first and last name. Normal, what. But something was wrong. The director felt blocked. By taking liberties with the identity of the international star, “we [avec Brigitte Buc, la coscénariste] allowed herself to compose with reality, invent details ”, she explains in the press kit. This solution made the fan feel more comfortable with her subject. “I had to build this story with the maximum precision, but with a step to the side, a few meters, respectful of her …”, she specifies.

The same reasons motivated her refusal to shoot in the singer’s parents’ house in Charlemagne (Quebec). “I preferred not to trample on his own life.” For the rest, the scenario ofAline is very close to the biography of Celine Dion.

The last one

Céline Dion is the youngest of a large family of fourteen children. In the feature film, the character is born years after his five brothers and eight sisters. Her mother will quickly form a close relationship with this unexpected child, to the point of making her sleep in the drawer of a cabinet in her bedroom. This is quite correct, except for one detail: in real life, the Dion children are not called Jean-Claudin, Jean-Damien or even Jean-Sylvain, but Michel, Paul, or even Daniel. A little less funny. As for Céline, she owes her first name to the song “Celine” by Hughes Aufray, a hit released two years before his birth, in 1968 (and not to the song “Aline” by Christophe, released when Céline was already 11 years old).

The film stays true to the facts: each child plays an instrument. Lulled by music, little Céline quickly begins to sing. At the age of 5, she performed for the first time in front of an audience on the occasion of her brother Michel’s wedding. She then got into the habit of accompanying her siblings to singing in her parents’ restaurant, Le Vieux Baril. At school, she is often absent and has bad grades.

Her family already sees her as the great performer she will become in the future. Céline was not yet 12 years old when her mother Thérèse and her brother Jacques composed an original song for her, “It was only a dream”, to send it to an impresario. Michel, another of his brothers, sends the recording to René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of an album cover by Ginette Reno, whose fame goes beyond the borders of Quebec. Without the determination of the family of what will become one of the greatest vocalists of her generation, the man who will be at the origin of her career might never have listened to this tape.

As directed by Valérie Lemercier, it is a phone call that convinces the artistic agent to listen to the teenager’s song. He is then out of work after being thanked by Ginette Reno. “If you had listened to this demo, you would have already called me”, Michel Dion would have said to the impresario. The appeal will bear fruit. René Angélil abandons his plans for retraining in law and puts everything on the young girl.

Aline rest faithful to reality by filming the first audition of the future star – with one detail: the shoes. This moving scene where Aline / Céline, who forgot to put on her shoes, borrows her mother’s shoes, is an invention. Valérie Lemercier wanted to allude to the thousands of pairs of shoes that will accumulate later in her idol’s wardrobe.

From prodigal son to international star

In Quebec, she enjoyed almost immediate success with her song “Ce n’est d’un rêve”. René mortgages his house to produce his first record, Good Lord’s voice, which will be a hit in Quebec. A year later, in 1982, the single “Ce n’est d’un rêve” was released in France. In August 1982, Celine Dion appeared for the first time on French television, in the program intended for young people “Croque-vacances”. Some months later, she is the guest of “Champs Élysées”, the program presented by Michel Drucker. She performed “D’amour ou d’amitié” and became the first Canadian to obtain a gold record in France. In 1986, determined to become an international star, she took a break. The young woman has her teeth redone, changes her look and takes intensive English lessons at Berlitz.

When she returned to the forefront in 1988, she was no longer a child. Now in her twenties and full of self-confidence, she won the Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented Switzerland, with the song “Do not go without me”. This is his first success outside of the Francophonie.

In the process, she signed a contract with Epic Records in the United States and released an album in English, Unison, in 1990. Thanks to more modern songs than those she had performed until then, she established herself as a pop artist in the English-speaking markets. Its popularity has only grown over the years. Released in 1996 and 1997, his albums Falling Into You and Let’s Talk About Love are among the best-selling in the history of the music industry.

However, she does not abandon French. Two (1995), fruit of his collaboration with Jean-Jacques Goldman, is the best-selling French-speaking album in France and around the world. The following decade will be dictated by his personal life. To succeed in giving birth and raising her family, she lands in Las Vegas. In the evenings, from 2003 to 2007, she performed at Caesars Palace, the highest-grossing residency show in history. After his successful tour “Taking Chances World Tour”, from 2008 to 2009, she resumes her residence in Las Vegas from 2011 to 2019 and gives several regional tours around the world.

His René

None of this would have been possible without “his René”. Valérie Lemercier was not mistaken. She put their love story at the heart ofAline. “I like unmatched couples, prevented loves which end up winning”, she explains. When Céline and René meet, the young girl is only 13 years old. Him, 38. He is married, father of a family and is especially interested in the extraordinary voice of his star seed. She is touched by the gentleness of her elder brother and by the attention he pays her.

In 1985, René Angélil divorced. The singer is 17 years old and dreams of a romantic relationship. His mother understands this and does everything to keep the 40-year-old away from her daughter. Himself pushes her away. Too young. For a year, he avoids it. When he comes to see her at the Eurovision Song Contest, she takes the opportunity to achieve her goals. For five years, the singer and her manager live their love story in secret. In 1991, he asked for her hand. In the film, the engagement ring hidden in a mirror is an invention of Valérie Lemercier. In 1993, Celine Dion finally revealed her romantic relationship, live on Canadian television. The one who is now an internationally adored singer marries the man of her life a few months later, in a dress almost as huge as the one seen in Aline.

After the most painful in vitro fertilization, the singer becomes pregnant. She announces it to René in the kitchen, during a meal. Valérie Lemercier explains the choice she made to tell about this evening: “I thought it was cute that Aline was writing the letters ‘BB’ in the mash, because that kind of fantasy looks like Celine.” Years later, she will give birth to her twins, Nelson and Eddy. On January 14, 2016, René died of cancer. What then happens in the life of the international star, no one knows except his relatives. Valérie Lemercier imagines her running away in the streets of Las Vegas. We like it.