Interview in May with Marie-Claude Barrette in Canada and Stephane Rotenberg in France

[yellowrose14]

Condor, I am going to confess that have watched your past videos over and over-so your hard work is definitely appreciated! Even my mom has watched a few of them. I am always checking for new ones because it is a multi-level pleasure for me. I am improving my French which should be much better after all the courses I took in high school and college and getting to hear the much fuller presentation from Celine as the English appearances tend to be short and formulaic.

[nuts2you]

Thank you , I've even cried a little again,

[Condor]

Condor, I am going to confess that have watched your past videos over and over-so your hard work is definitely appreciated! Even my mom has watched a few of them. I am always checking for new ones because it is a multi-level pleasure for me. I am improving my French which should be much better after all the courses I took in high school and college and getting to hear the much fuller presentation from Celine as the English appearances tend to be short and formulaic.

 

That's interesting that you watched my videos more than once.Honestly,precisely because of having to read subtitles,I thought someone would watch a video once.Maybe twice.I take this from my own experience when I was studying cinema in college.The professors demanded that we watch old movies by great directors like Frederico Fellini for example.His films were naturally in Italian with French subtitles and after watching a subtitled film once,I had enough...except for La Dolce Vita...because Anita Ekberg played in it, lol!

[Condor]

Thank you , I've even cried a little again,

I can guess you cried when they showed a part of the funerals.Generally,I'm not easily moved,but I really was when I watched the entrance of Céline and her family live,in the beginning of René's funerals.

[NicoNV]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LW2Sob5RnEY

Thanks Condor! I love the statement I remember the first kiss and the last. I also like how you subbed the French speaking parts 

 

 

Thank you, Condor!! You're the best!

[Javito]

In the documentary "Ma vie sans René" they used the original instrumentals for "Right In Front Of You" and "I Surrender"!!! :wub: How they get the rights for these and fans can't have these released 14 years later?

[ryba]

In the documentary "Ma vie sans René" they used the original instrumentals for "Right In Front Of You" and "I Surrender"!!! :wub: How they get the rights for these and fans can't have these released 14 years later?

could you share a link? Would love to hear it

[Javito]

could you share a link? Would love to hear it

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW2Sob5RnEY

[nuts2you]

is there a part 2 ,

[Condor]

is there a part 2 ,

 

Thank you for all the nice words on this page about "Céline sans René" Part 1.

 

I've separated the 90 minute video in 3 parts,because it takes an eternity to upload a good quality video (Mpeg 4) on YT. For instance,even if I'm on a fast internet connection,Part 1 which is 28 minutes long,took 5 hours to upload and process by YT.Processing by YT means they lower the quality and I'm always a little disappointed when I compare with the Mpeg 4 copy that I keep on an external hard drive.

 

Anyway,I started translating Part 2 and 8 minutes are done.

Céline says something at the beginning of the video that might create a strange impression to some people.Look up all the definitions of the verb "To caress" in any dictionary,online or not.

[Caledor]

This is really a nice interview.

 

I have a question though: I always thought that their relationship began in 1988 after Eurovision, because Celine was now 20 and René did not want anyhting else than professionnal with her while she was a minor.

However, in the interview Celine said that they could not reveal their relationship because it was not correct, and because René was still married.

I thought he divorced in 1985 ?

 

Can someone make my chronology clear ? That would be awesome

[jessx]

This is really a nice interview.

 

I have a question though: I always thought that their relationship began in 1988 after Eurovision, because Celine was now 20 and René did not want anyhting else than professionnal with her while she was a minor.

However, in the interview Celine said that they could not reveal their relationship because it was not correct, and because René was still married.

I thought he divorced in 1985 ?

 

Can someone make my chronology clear ? That would be awesome

 

I thought that too, but in My Story, My Dream, she talks about him putting distance between them, in paris, in 85. She says that she begged him to tell her that he didn't love her, but he could never tell her that he wasn't in love with her, but she realised that he was trying to patch up his marriage to his second wife. Later on in the book, she talks about how they went into a period of platonic love, they were hiding, so people could see them, but they weren't physical.

 

Based on that, I'm guessing that she means that they loved each other, but René wouldn't go there, partly due to the fact that in 85, Celine was 17, and partly down to wanting to give his children their family, fully intact.

 

Either that, or she's just come clean, about their relationship. There would be nothing to lose now, if it was the case that she was younger when they got together. Normally, at that age, I'd be like WHAT, but she was no normal 17 year old, it seems as though she was pretty switched on and older than her years.

 

Either way, I think its evident from the years they spent together, they were meant for each other, they just happened to be generations apart. I feel for them both, she must have felt so rejected, and he must have felt awful to have to hurt her, when he loved her, but he put his children first, major respect!

 

Don't know if that helps you any...

Edited June 18, 2016 at 11:35 AM by jessx

[Caledor]

I thought that too, but in My Story, My Dream, she talks about him putting distance between them, in paris, in 85. She says that she begged him to tell her that he didn't love her, but he could never tell her that he wasn't in love with her, but she realised that he was trying to patch up his marriage to his second wife. Later on in the book, she talks about how they went into a period of platonic love, they were hiding, so people could see them, but they weren't physical.

 

Based on that, I'm guessing that she means that they loved each other, but René wouldn't go there, partly due to the fact that in 85, Celine was 17, and partly down to wanting to give his children their family, fully intact.

 

Either that, or she's just come clean, about their relationship. There would be nothing to lose now, if it was the case that she was younger when they got together. Normally, at that age, I'd be like WHAT, but she was no normal 17 year old, it seems as though she was pretty switched on and older than her years.

 

Either way, I think its evident from the years they spent together, they were meant for each other, they just happened to be generations apart. I feel for them both, she must have felt so rejected, and he must have felt awful to have to hurt her, when he loved her, but he put his children first, major respect!

 

Don't know if that helps you any...

 

Thanks for your reply. I need to read MSMD again

[jessx]

 

 

Thanks for your reply. I need to read MSMD again

 

 

I have the book here actually, I will try and find the passage for you.

 

Edited June 18, 2016 at 12:27 PM by jessx

[scielle]

This is really a nice interview.

 

I have a question though: I always thought that their relationship began in 1988 after Eurovision, because Celine was now 20 and René did not want anyhting else than professionnal with her while she was a minor.

However, in the interview Celine said that they could not reveal their relationship because it was not correct, and because René was still married.

I thought he divorced in 1985 ?

 

Can someone make my chronology clear ? That would be awesome

 

Agree with jessx.

The way I interpreted that was she was clearly completely infatuated long before '88 - just couldn't do anything about it b/c she knew she was too young and he was trying to patch up his marriage, and there were children involved, etc. And that he was freaked out by it and trying to shut it down for much the same reasons; didn't he effectively "run away" for a year at one point to try and fix his marriage, assuming it was just a passing phase on Celine's part? I think it just took her a while to convince him she's not going anywhere (though probably not for lack of trying!). For a long time, I think it was all just in her head, you know?

 

I was actually surprised there wasn't much discussion about this when the interview first aired, because agree, the way she phrased things here is up for interpretation.

 

And in general, surprised there's been comparatively so little discussion about the content of these interviews. There's more traffic around here about her hair, nails, eyebrows, etc.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 01:32 PM by scielle

[comingback]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2_SAZhNJPg

 

Yes, their lovestory began for 1988 and Eurovision. The song Pour vous from 1985 is clearly about Rene.

Eddy Marnay was amazing, he put Celine's emotion in songs like no other (except JJG).

 

 

For You (Pour vous)

I came

From my corner of the planet

And I want to sing for you

The images and the words

That sing in my head

I want to sing them for you

All my rides

My kindergartens

I want to sing them for you

As long as love

Takes me in its dance

I will sing for you

I will take a closer look

At all the wonders in the sky and in the water

At all the flame birds caressing the waves

Islands where boats are crazy

The run for the stars the country of miracles

I want to sing them for you

I want to learn

The pleasures of the Earth

And I want to sing them for you

Because I love you

And I want to be loved

What I sing is for you

What I sing is for you

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfeKyW-J2WY

 

The scene at the start of the Olympia-performance says it all.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 02:03 PM by comingback

[DionFanAlways]

On this subject I find it interesting that Therese was keeping an eye on Rene, according to Celine, but really I've always seen Celine as the aggressor, as she has said in the past. For some funny reason, I always see Rene running away until she finally got him "Alone"!

[comingback]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2_SAZhNJPg

 

Yes, their lovestory began for 1988 and Eurovision. The song Pour vous from 1985 is clearly about Rene.

Eddy Marnay was amazing, he put Celine's emotion in songs like no other (except JJG).

 

 

For You (Pour vous)

I came

From my corner of the planet

And I want to sing for you

The images and the words

That sing in my head

I want to sing them for you

All my rides

My kindergartens

I want to sing them for you

As long as love

Takes me in its dance

I will sing for you

I will take a closer look

At all the wonders in the sky and in the water

At all the flame birds caressing the waves

Islands where boats are crazy

The run for the stars the country of miracles

I want to sing them for you

I want to learn

The pleasures of the Earth

And I want to sing them for you

Because I love you

And I want to be loved

What I sing is for you

What I sing is for you

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfeKyW-J2WY

 

The scene at the start of the Olympia-performance says it all.

 

+ Celine had a photo of Rene under her pillow.

[comingback]

From My Story, My Dream

 

From the very beginning, when Rene began to look after me, he got into the habit of sitting in the audience to watch all my shows. He'd always done it. He never stayed in the wings, like a lot of managers.

Afterward he'd come into my dressing room or my hotel room and tell my mother and me what had happened, song by song, during my show.

"Honest to God, he acts as if I hadn't been there," I'd say. "He's giving me a blow-by-blow description of what / just did and what / just said!"

But I loved listening to his accounts. And soon, I couldn't do without them. Usually, these commentaries took less than a half hour. Then Rene stood up; he'd kiss my mother and me on both cheeks and leave us to ourselves after unfailingly asking my mother every evening if everything was in order, if we were eating well, if the beds were comfortable, if everyone on the staff of the hotel and the restaurant had been nice to us, etc. I'd go to bed with my cheeks softly tingling—and with a little of his cologne on my skin. He'd leave to meet his friends. Whether we were in Chicoutimi or Val d'Or in Quebec, or in Ottawa, he always had some people to meet. He would play cards or go see a show at a nightclub. He lived in a mysterious world that I dreamed of enter­ing, a world that seemed very glamorous and exciting. But I was just fifteen or sixteen years old, and I hadn't even lost my baby teeth, as my mother used to say.

For the first time in my life, I was hiding something from Maman, hiding my budding love for Rene. I must have told her at least a hundred times that he was dear to my heart, but I never dared tell her that I dreamed of him every night: how he would come to my bed to get me and take me away to a desert island where we made love. I never told her about the torrid movies that he was starring in more and more often.

I'd found—where I don't know—a photo of him that I gazed at a thousand times a day without my mother knowing and that I cov­ered with kisses at night, in my bed. I rubbed it against my cheek. It slipped onto my neck like a kiss and slid onto my shoulders. Before I fell asleep, I slipped it under the pillow, out of fear that my mother, who always shared a room with me, would find it.

One morning, I woke up with the photo of my love on the pillow, in full view, next to my head. My mother had already gotten up, washed, dressed, and even opened the curtains. She must have seen the photo. I was scared stiff that she'd talk to Rene about it, that she'd tell him that I had a crush on him and that he'd better be careful with me if he didn't want any trouble from her. And that it would be best for me to get over it as soon as possible.

If she'd seen that precious photo, she must not have believed there could be anything serious between Rene and me. I understood her. Rene's head and heart were somewhere else.

As soon as I left the stage and work was over, he didn't see me. It was as if I no longer existed. In his eyes, I turned back into an ordi­nary little girl who wasn't very pretty, with inordinately long and prominent canines (some humorists had nicknamed me Dracula), bushy eyebrows, too long a face still encumbered by baby fat, with a big nose and lips that were too thin.

If he ever spoke to me in a personal way, it was about what I was onstage and TV, about Celine Dion the singer, never about me in real life.

And so, I never wanted to leave the stage because it was the only place I felt I existed for him.

Probably it was his watching me that started to make me love being onstage or in front of the cameras or even in the recording stu­dio, singing. Just to fascinate him more.

I say that now, but I no longer really know what went through the head of the teenager I was. I don't even know any longer how or when my love for Rene began, when his hold on my emotions became too obvious to ignore.

Sometimes I saw him standing so attentively in the shadows, in the audience that was watching me and applauding or gaping. And each time it was magic; I sang for him so that he'd think I was good, so that he'd tell me again and again, "You're the best." And so I could make the tears come to his eyes.

I was sixteen. I no longer knew how to get over him. I was already hopelessly in love.

 

One day in Paris, in a restaurant we went to often, I was seated at the end of the table and waiting for Rene to sit down next to me. But when he came in with the others, he passed by me, by his usual place, and went to sit at the other end of the table. I was shattered, destroyed. My legs began to tremble. Everything col­lapsed around me.

It was a dreary meal. I obviously couldn't swallow a thing. I kept seeking his eyes, which avoided me. My mother was sitting with us somewhere, so was Eddy, Mia, and some others, composers and pro­ducers who'd been at the recording session.

And then everyone left, leaving us alone. He got up and came toward me. He seemed tired.

"Come on," he told me. "We'll walk back together." I thought he was going to tell me something terrible. I was shak­ing so much I had difficulty standing up. Outside, he immediately told me we couldn't let ourselves be seen that way anymore. We had to break off that familiarity between us. I think he'd prepared a speech and rehearsed it. My head was spinning. I wanted to sit down on the sidewalk. I wanted him to go away, to leave me alone. I would have stayed there until the world ended or I would have kept walk­ing until I dropped.

"Did Maman ask you to do this?" He didn't answer.

So I said: "I know that you love me, Rene Angelil." He didn't say anything. I thought he was going to cry. "If you don't love me, I want you to say it. Tell me: 'Celine, I don't love you.' If you don't say it, I'll never believe you. I can't believe you. Because I know that you love me, understand me. Tell me I'm wrong if you can."

He was never capable of telling me he didn't love me. That's what kept me, I think, from completely falling apart.

I knew he loved me. If he'd said he didn't, I would never have believed him. And I just couldn't understand why he was refusing the love I had to offer. Why he was rejecting me and rejecting our happiness.

I myself had never had the slightest hesitation. Not for a fraction of a second had I ever thought of doing harm to anyone. I knew his

marriage to Anne-Renee was over. Not because of me. There was no longer any love between them now, either on Rene's side or on Anne-Renee's. Finally I realized he was trying to patch up his marriage for the sake of the children. And I said to him: "Do you really think making yourself unhappy can make your children happy?"

He didn't answer.

"Your happiness is with me, and you know it. Tell me it's not, if you can."

He was walking next to me. But he was far, far away.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 03:13 PM by comingback

[mike_z]

Well, let's not forget about "D'amour ou d'amitié", long before that.

 

I think Eddy was some sort of confident for Céline, he knew everything from the very beginning. That's why he was always so special for them until his death, even naming one of their sons after him. He put in words what Céline couldn't express by herself. But I wonder if it was out of pure instinct of based on real conversations with Céline, back in '83, '84.

[jessx]

On this subject I find it interesting that Therese was keeping an eye on Rene, according to Celine, but really I've always seen Celine as the aggressor, as she has said in the past. For some funny reason, I always see Rene running away until she finally got him "Alone"!

 

He must have had some feeling for her, otherwise, he'd have nothing to run from, he wouldn't have found it hard to resist. In his bio, I think sure, there's a quote in there about when she was maybe, 18, where he says how she was changing, he found her attractive but he tried control himself. If he had no feeling, he wouldn't have found it hard to control. In the end, regardless of what's going on, we only end up where we allow ourselves to end up. And I can't see his feeling just appearing quickly, after all that time.

 

There's a picture of them both, I think the day after Eurovision, and the way he's looking at her, is a look of a man, just as infatuated.

 

I think Céline had less to lose, hens why she went for him so relentlessly. She was young, and in love, and probably couldn't see the Forrest for the trees. She had nobody else to consider but herself.

 

I read back through her autobiography after my first post, and she makes several references to not understanding, at the time why he rejected her. So I stand by what she said that she was no normal young woman, but I think at the heart of it, she was a young woman, madly in love, and besotted with a man, with a lot of responsibility, and also a hefty past with women, not just his two marriages.

 

It's one of those things we'll never know, didn't she say in something else that he kept his distance incase he couldn't love her the way she deserved.

 

As open as Céline is, and René was to a certain extent. She is a serious media manipulator. I've never seen a woman, who can conduct an interview, talk and talk and talk, without actually telling you anything, and keeping her secrets intact, yet the interviewer and the audience watch in awe, believing they're witnessing an exclusive. She gives dribs and drabs of stories to different people, and leaves people wondering what she meant, yet seems to always manage to avoid incriminating herself or anybody she loves in scandal. It makes me laugh when people think she's stupid, she's extremely intelligent, and learned alot. Because of this, if their relationship was going on before it should, she'll probably never do more than just suggest, even if there is nothing to lose now.

 

If what they said is true, and Eurovision is when they admitted and consummated their love, there are probably a million different reasons, why it wasn't before, and I'm sure in the situation they were in, there were probably more than a few close calls for them as well.

 

Theirs was a love that seemed complicated, and somehow, in the end they made it simplistic, they loved each other. And regardless of whether they started out, bending their morals a little, they stood the test of time, and no matter what, they had each others backs. If they did lie about it,they never dobbed each other in. Impressive for a woman the media write off as over emotional, and a little erratic.

[comingback]

From My Story, My Dream

 

From the very beginning, when Rene began to look after me, he got into the habit of sitting in the audience to watch all my shows. He'd always done it. He never stayed in the wings, like a lot of managers.

Afterward he'd come into my dressing room or my hotel room and tell my mother and me what had happened, song by song, during my show.

"Honest to God, he acts as if I hadn't been there," I'd say. "He's giving me a blow-by-blow description of what / just did and what / just said!"

But I loved listening to his accounts. And soon, I couldn't do without them. Usually, these commentaries took less than a half hour. Then Rene stood up; he'd kiss my mother and me on both cheeks and leave us to ourselves after unfailingly asking my mother every evening if everything was in order, if we were eating well, if the beds were comfortable, if everyone on the staff of the hotel and the restaurant had been nice to us, etc. I'd go to bed with my cheeks softly tingling—and with a little of his cologne on my skin. He'd leave to meet his friends. Whether we were in Chicoutimi or Val d'Or in Quebec, or in Ottawa, he always had some people to meet. He would play cards or go see a show at a nightclub. He lived in a mysterious world that I dreamed of enter­ing, a world that seemed very glamorous and exciting. But I was just fifteen or sixteen years old, and I hadn't even lost my baby teeth, as my mother used to say.

For the first time in my life, I was hiding something from Maman, hiding my budding love for Rene. I must have told her at least a hundred times that he was dear to my heart, but I never dared tell her that I dreamed of him every night: how he would come to my bed to get me and take me away to a desert island where we made love. I never told her about the torrid movies that he was starring in more and more often.

I'd found—where I don't know—a photo of him that I gazed at a thousand times a day without my mother knowing and that I cov­ered with kisses at night, in my bed. I rubbed it against my cheek. It slipped onto my neck like a kiss and slid onto my shoulders. Before I fell asleep, I slipped it under the pillow, out of fear that my mother, who always shared a room with me, would find it.

One morning, I woke up with the photo of my love on the pillow, in full view, next to my head. My mother had already gotten up, washed, dressed, and even opened the curtains. She must have seen the photo. I was scared stiff that she'd talk to Rene about it, that she'd tell him that I had a crush on him and that he'd better be careful with me if he didn't want any trouble from her. And that it would be best for me to get over it as soon as possible.

If she'd seen that precious photo, she must not have believed there could be anything serious between Rene and me. I understood her. Rene's head and heart were somewhere else.

As soon as I left the stage and work was over, he didn't see me. It was as if I no longer existed. In his eyes, I turned back into an ordi­nary little girl who wasn't very pretty, with inordinately long and prominent canines (some humorists had nicknamed me Dracula), bushy eyebrows, too long a face still encumbered by baby fat, with a big nose and lips that were too thin.

If he ever spoke to me in a personal way, it was about what I was onstage and TV, about Celine Dion the singer, never about me in real life.

And so, I never wanted to leave the stage because it was the only place I felt I existed for him.

Probably it was his watching me that started to make me love being onstage or in front of the cameras or even in the recording stu­dio, singing. Just to fascinate him more.

I say that now, but I no longer really know what went through the head of the teenager I was. I don't even know any longer how or when my love for Rene began, when his hold on my emotions became too obvious to ignore.

Sometimes I saw him standing so attentively in the shadows, in the audience that was watching me and applauding or gaping. And each time it was magic; I sang for him so that he'd think I was good, so that he'd tell me again and again, "You're the best." And so I could make the tears come to his eyes.

I was sixteen. I no longer knew how to get over him. I was already hopelessly in love.

 

One day in Paris, in a restaurant we went to often, I was seated at the end of the table and waiting for Rene to sit down next to me. But when he came in with the others, he passed by me, by his usual place, and went to sit at the other end of the table. I was shattered, destroyed. My legs began to tremble. Everything col­lapsed around me.

It was a dreary meal. I obviously couldn't swallow a thing. I kept seeking his eyes, which avoided me. My mother was sitting with us somewhere, so was Eddy, Mia, and some others, composers and pro­ducers who'd been at the recording session.

And then everyone left, leaving us alone. He got up and came toward me. He seemed tired.

"Come on," he told me. "We'll walk back together." I thought he was going to tell me something terrible. I was shak­ing so much I had difficulty standing up. Outside, he immediately told me we couldn't let ourselves be seen that way anymore. We had to break off that familiarity between us. I think he'd prepared a speech and rehearsed it. My head was spinning. I wanted to sit down on the sidewalk. I wanted him to go away, to leave me alone. I would have stayed there until the world ended or I would have kept walk­ing until I dropped.

"Did Maman ask you to do this?" He didn't answer.

So I said: "I know that you love me, Rene Angelil." He didn't say anything. I thought he was going to cry. "If you don't love me, I want you to say it. Tell me: 'Celine, I don't love you.' If you don't say it, I'll never believe you. I can't believe you. Because I know that you love me, understand me. Tell me I'm wrong if you can."

He was never capable of telling me he didn't love me. That's what kept me, I think, from completely falling apart.

I knew he loved me. If he'd said he didn't, I would never have believed him. And I just couldn't understand why he was refusing the love I had to offer. Why he was rejecting me and rejecting our happiness.

I myself had never had the slightest hesitation. Not for a fraction of a second had I ever thought of doing harm to anyone. I knew his

marriage to Anne-Renee was over. Not because of me. There was no longer any love between them now, either on Rene's side or on Anne-Renee's. Finally I realized he was trying to patch up his marriage for the sake of the children. And I said to him: "Do you really think making yourself unhappy can make your children happy?"

He didn't answer.

"Your happiness is with me, and you know it. Tell me it's not, if you can."

He was walking next to me. But he was far, far away.

+

That summer I recorded a new album, C'est pour toi (This Is for You). Rene was there at the sessions, but he didn't seem altogether present nor as exacting as he'd been before. He no longer said to me, "You can do better," or "Make me cry."

Because of this, I decided that he was losing interest in me, or worse, that he felt I wouldn't be able to respond to his demands because I seemed so sad. Apart from that assessment, I concocted all kinds of theories, one more twisted than the next.

"He can feel me suffering because he knows I love him. Or maybe he sees that I'm suffering but doesn't want to know the cause. But if he doesn't, then he really doesn't love me. Maybe all this bores him, and he really doesn't want me to love him. Maybe he's been telling himself that because of this we can't work together."

This time, as he did before. Eddy told the story of my life in the songs he was writing for me. He'd been observing me. It was obvious that he too had seen everything, understood everything. He'd found the lyrics for his songs deep inside me. What's more, they seemed so familiar to me that I only had to read them once or twice to learn them by heart.

Sometimes my words sound so bizarre;

On and on they go about the things I've felt.

Then comes your look to make my poor heart melt.

Sometimes I laugh just a little too much.

You don't get it at all.

You look at me appalled.

Don't ask too many questions.

The answer's in my eyes.

Between us lies the reason why.

Don't make me tell you everything,

'Cause you already know.

Everything I do today I do because I love you so.

As I sang, I'd tell myself: "He can't not understand." I spent my days and nights wondering what he was thinking, where his heart was, if he knew that I loved him, and how he could ignore it, and if he still loved Anne-Renee, if they made love together a lot ...

For the first time in five years, we had no upcoming project or tour, no show in France or Quebec, no TV appearances. We made the album C'est pour toi almost mechanically, without put­ting much heart or time into it—and without much hope inside our­selves. What is more, Rene didn't seem to be in a hurry to organize the publicity campaign as he had been in the past.

It was because he had other projects in mind for me that he had been thinking about for a long time. One evening he revealed them

to me, a few days before the Adisq award ceremonies where I'd tri­umphed as the crying machine that couldn't be turned off.

He had decided that we were going to stop things cold.

"For how long?" I asked.

"For as long as it takes."

"As long as what takes?"

"For our luck to return."

"It's your wife that's left you, not luck."

He laughed. I liked his laugh, even when he sounded sad.

He reminded me about his theory of patterns, about bad things never coming alone, as well as victories and defeats. And that you needed to hide away for a while, take some time off, not act when you knew you were in danger, when you knew you'd make some foolish mistakes.

"At the moment, as you can see, I'm going through a bad period. And instead of making mistakes, I'm going to step back. You're going to stop for a few months too—for a full year if necessary. When we start again, it'll be in a big way, we'll be going far, you'll see."

Edited June 18, 2016 at 03:42 PM by comingback

[scielle]

He must have had some feeling for her, otherwise, he'd have nothing to run from, he wouldn't have found it hard to resist. In his bio, I think sure, there's a quote in there about when she was maybe, 18, where he says how she was changing, he found her attractive but he tried control himself. If he had no feeling, he wouldn't have found it hard to control. In the end, regardless of what's going on, we only end up where we allow ourselves to end up. And I can't see his feeling just appearing quickly, after all that time.

 

There's a picture of them both, I think the day after Eurovision, and the way he's looking at her, is a look of a man, just as infatuated.

 

I think Céline had less to lose, hens why she went for him so relentlessly. She was young, and in love, and probably couldn't see the Forrest for the trees. She had nobody else to consider but herself.

 

I read back through her autobiography after my first post, and she makes several references to not understanding, at the time why he rejected her. So I stand by what she said that she was no normal young woman, but I think at the heart of it, she was a young woman, madly in love, and besotted with a man, with a lot of responsibility, and also a hefty past with women, not just his two marriages.

 

It's one of those things we'll never know, didn't she say in something else that he kept his distance incase he couldn't love her the way she deserved.

 

As open as Céline is, and René was to a certain extent. She is a serious media manipulator. I've never seen a woman, who can conduct an interview, talk and talk and talk, without actually telling you anything, and keeping her secrets intact, yet the interviewer and the audience watch in awe, believing they're witnessing an exclusive. She gives dribs and drabs of stories to different people, and leaves people wondering what she meant, yet seems to always manage to avoid incriminating herself or anybody she loves in scandal. It makes me laugh when people think she's stupid, she's extremely intelligent, and learned alot. Because of this, if their relationship was going on before it should, she'll probably never do more than just suggest, even if there is nothing to lose now.

 

If what they said is true, and Eurovision is when they admitted and consummated their love, there are probably a million different reasons, why it wasn't before, and I'm sure in the situation they were in, there were probably more than a few close calls for them as well.

 

Theirs was a love that seemed complicated, and somehow, in the end they made it simplistic, they loved each other. And regardless of whether they started out, bending their morals a little, they stood the test of time, and no matter what, they had each others backs. If they did lie about it,they never dobbed each other in. Impressive for a woman the media write off as over emotional, and a little erratic.

 

Well said.

 

And what you said about her being smarter than people expect is very true in some respects, I think. It reminds me of what Denise Bombardier said - either in her book or in one of the interviews about it - about how she has interviewed presidents and prime ministers and academics and heads of state, and considers Celine to be right up there with them in terms of EQ. She talked about how expertly Celine can read the room and figure people out. It goes a long way to explain why she's able to connect so well with songs that are often very generic, and how, just as you said, she's able to so expertly work the media. She kind of seems to be off the scale on the emotional intelligence spectrum!

 

And for all the talk about her being an open book, I think that's all very controlled as well. She's very strategic about what she does and doesn't reveal, and with good reason. She can talk a lot and come off as very open and confidential, but without actually saying much at all. It's a pretty amazing, and I think in her case very innate, skill.

And I've always been very impressed by how, for someone so 'open', she's been able to keep her life very private when she really wants to.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 03:44 PM by scielle

[comingback]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orGEadnvbKA

 

Celine sang the famous Whitney song "Saving all my love for you" in 1986. It's amazing how this song describes their love story.

She matured alot 1985/1986 and it was for Rene. Than she came as a woman in 1987 with Incognito.

 

Saving All My Love For You

 

A few stolen moments, is all that we shared

You've got your family, and they need you there

Though I try to resist, being last on your list

But no other man's gonna do

So I'm saving all my love for you

 

It's not very easy, living all alone

My friends try and tell me, find a man of my own

But each time I try, I just break down and cry

Cause I'd rather be home feeling blue

So I'm saving all my love for you

 

You used to tell me, we'd run away together

Love gives you the right to be free

You said be patient, just wait a little longer

But that's just an old fantasy

 

I've got to get ready, just a few minutes more

Gonna get an old feeling, when you walk through that door

'Cause tonight, is the night for feeling alright

We'll be making love the whole night through

So I'm saving all my love

Yes, I'm saving all my love

Yes, I'm saving all my love for you

 

No other women is gonna love you more

'Cause tonight is the night

That I'm feeling all right

We'll be making love the whole night through

So I'm saving all my love

Yeah, I'm savin all my lovin'

Yes, I'm saving all my love for you

For you, for you

Edited June 18, 2016 at 04:22 PM by comingback

[yellowrose14]

Well said.

 

And what you said about her being smarter than people expect is very true in some respects, I think. It reminds me of what Denise Bombardier said - either in her book or in one of the interviews about it - about how she has interviewed presidents and prime ministers and academics and heads of state, and considers Celine to be right up there with them in terms of EQ. She talked about how expertly Celine can read the room and figure people out. It goes a long way to explain why she's able to connect so well with songs that are often very generic, and how, just as you said, she's able to so expertly work the media. She kind of seems to be off the scale on the emotional intelligence spectrum!

 

And for all the talk about her being an open book, I think that's all very controlled as well. She's very strategic about what she does and doesn't reveal, and with good reason. She can talk a lot and come off as very open and confidential, but without actually saying much at all. It's a pretty amazing, and I think in her case very innate, skill.

And I've always been very impressed by how, for someone so 'open', she's been able to keep her life very private when she really wants to.

 

 

This is true. A great observation! I was thinking the other day that Celine and Rene disarmed the media by talking about how open they were. But, if you listen to different interviews, Celine and Rene decided which anecdotes would be told and they have told them multiple times. They are charming and intimate revelations ( Eurovision. her using the movie "Up" to explain death to the twins), but she had decided how to tell them and what phrases to use and sticks to the pattern. Yet, she also manages to make them seem new!! I don't know how she does this. At Rene's Celebration of Life, she mentioned how he never or very rarely talked negatively about anyone as it it had occurred to her as a reflection on his life. But, she states just this in the last pages of her autobiography:

 

" Rene never liked to hear me say anything at all negative about anything, especially not about another singer or someone in show business. Except when we were alone, of course. And even then! For him, talking about other people is vulgar."

 

 

I think it was very clever of them to use this strategy because it does preserve a private life for them. Celine is also very adroit at evading questions that she does not want to answer while remaining approachable and sincere.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 05:17 PM by yellowrose14

[RosieBarron]

Well, let's not forget about "D'amour ou d'amitié", long before that.

 

I think Eddy was some sort of confident for Céline, he knew everything from the very beginning. That's why he was always so special for them until his death, even naming one of their sons after him. He put in words what Céline couldn't express by herself. But I wonder if it was out of pure instinct of based on real conversations with Céline, back in '83, '84.

 

Wasn't "D'amour ou d'amitié" about a boy she'd kissed?

[jessx]

 

 

Wasn't "D'amour ou d'amitié" about a boy she'd kissed?

 

If you watch Céline Dion: Driven, I think it's on youtube, Eddy Marnay says he wrote it about Céline and René.

[RosieBarron]

If you watch Céline Dion: Driven, I think it's on youtube, Eddy Marnay says he wrote it about Céline and René.

 

I was going from the 'My Story My Dream' book pages 69 to 70. I think his name was Sylvain.

Edited June 18, 2016 at 07:40 PM by RosieBarron

[jessx]

 

 

I was going from the 'My Story My Dream' book pages 69 to 70. I think his name was Sylvain.

 

I just skipped through to find the quote, he says "I anticipated what was going to happen... They would say 'it's marvellous to have such a wonderful friendship' but it wasn't really friendship in my mind... So I wrote is it love or friendship"

 

But you're right, it does say what you said in the book. 😊

[comingback]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR5e-WmOqhk

 

 

Yes, I think the song is about this boy Sylvain, but the songs on the album C'est pour toi are about Rene.

 

"His name was Sylvain. It happened on the porch at My sister Claudette's house in Lachenaie. It was a real kiss, not a long one, but I got very worked up about it. This was because, afterward, I couldn't manage to identify what I had been feeling. I didn't wonder if he loved me, but if I was in love. Besides, I wouldn't have understood it even if he had loved me. I didn't think I was very attractive."

Edited June 20, 2016 at 03:44 PM by comingback