The film's narrative structure is a largely non-linear series of key events from the life of Édith Piaf, many of which the audience ultimately learns are evoked as flashbacks from within Édith's own memory as she dies. Despite the fractured narrative approach, the film is anchored at the beginning by predominance of elements from her childhood, and at the end with the events prior to and surrounding her death, poignantly juxtaposed by a performance of her song, "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I don't regret a thing).
The film opens with Édith as a small child in 1918, crying on a stoop after being teased by other children on the streets of Paris. Her mother stands across the alley singing, busking for change. Édith's mother writes to her child's father, the acrobat, who is fighting in the trenches of World War I battlefields, informing him that she is leaving Édith with her mother so she can pursue the life of the artist. Her father returns to Paris and scoops up a sick Édith, then in turn leaves the child with his own mother, who is a madam of a bordello in Normandy. Now living as a child in a brothel, surrounded by the often brutal and demeaning business of prostitution, Édith is taken under the wing of the women there, especially Titine, a young troubled redhead who becomes emotionally attached to the little girl. Titine sings to, plays with, and tenderly cares for Édith through travails including an episode of keratitis-induced blindness that is healed through their prayers to St. Thérèse.
The film opens with Édith as a small child in 1918, crying on a stoop after being teased by other children on the streets of Paris. Her mother stands across the alley singing, busking for change. Édith's mother writes to her child's father, the acrobat, who is fighting in the trenches of World War I battlefields, informing him that she is leaving Édith with her mother so she can pursue the life of the artist. Her father returns to Paris and scoops up a sick Édith, then in turn leaves the child with his own mother, who is a madam of a bordello in Normandy. Now living as a child in a brothel, surrounded by the often brutal and demeaning business of prostitution, Édith is taken under the wing of the women there, especially Titine, a young troubled redhead who becomes emotionally attached to the little girl. Titine sings to, plays with, and tenderly cares for Édith through travails including an episode of keratitis-induced blindness that is healed through their prayers to St. Thérèse.
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