Celine: Through the eyes of the world
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The musical documentary "Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" isn't likely to repeat the commercial success of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" or "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert", but the film will let fans into the private world of their idol.
Celine Dion, international superstar and one of the best-selling female artists of all time, traveled with her husband René Angélil, son Rene-Charles Angelil, mother Thérèse Tanguay Dion and the rest of her family on a 5-continent, 25-country, 93-city Taking Chances World Tour between February 2008 and February 2009. It was Dion's first tour in nine years and was a huge success, selling over three million tickets.
The Hot Ticket, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, estimated that there might be market potential in a film, and put together a documentary titled "Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" using high-definition footage shot by a small team led by Jean-Francois Perrault who did 800 hours of filming from South Africa to Omaha.
The concert film, a genre that is by no means new – dating back to 1965 and The T.A.M.I. Show, has not so far proved very popular but has been catching on in recent years and more and more are beginning to emerge.
3-D technology helps to bring the stars to life on the big screen, making you feel like you are really attending a concert. Miley Cyrus has done it. U2 have done it. And the Jonas Brothers have done it. Now even country singer Kenny Chesney is planning to do it in the summer; a trailer for his forthcoming 3-D concert movie was screened before Dion's movie.
But there are problems. First, the main target audience is the fans, who I guess are happy to see their idol on the big screen but would prefer to see the real deal in a stadium with thousands of people, even if their seats are far from the stage with a restricted view. Second, in a movie theater, which contains a few hundred people at most, you can't sing, you can't dance, you can't applaud and you can't even wave your hands or lighters. The atmosphere is not right.
So concert films seldom succeed. "This Is It" was the exception due to Jackson's shocking death. Cyrus succeeded thanks to teen power and the high price of 3-D movie tickets. But Dion, a Canadian diva who has seen a huge decline in her records sales and popularity, to say nothing of the parlous state of the recording industry, doesn't fit into any category likely to generate interest beyond her hard-core fans.
So "Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" had a strictly limited run. The dates were February 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27 and 28 in North America. And as Sony Pictures hasn't released any info about the box office numbers yet, we can only guess at the results.
"Celine: Through the Eyes of the World" is pleasant to watch, even though I attended a showing along with no more than 20 people on February 17. It is more a documentary than a concert film, more a family album than a collection of performances.
"This was an amazing world tour," Dion said. "But there's a lot more than just concert footage on this film. I let the cameras follow me everywhere. There are a lot of ups and downs, and it's very personal...and it's definitely the most intimate journey that I've ever shared with my fans."
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