A Self Made Hero (Un héros très discret)

Jacques Audiard made his second feature as a director with Un héros très discret (A Self-Made Hero), a French drama from 1996 adapted from Jean-François Deniau's novel of the same name. It runs about 105 minutes. Audiard wrote the screenplay with Alain Le Henry and Deniau. The film played in the main competition at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and won the prize for best screenplay.

The narrative takes the form of a historical documentary: the elderly Dehousse recounts his life, and the account is cut with interviews of other people and historians. A single life is thus presented as both a personal memoir and a documented past. Mathieu Kassovitz and Albert Dupontel play the leads, and the cast also includes Sandrine Kiberlain, Jean-Louis Trintignant, François Berléand and Anouk Grinberg.

Patrick Godeau produced the film and Alexandre Desplat composed the music. In 1997 it received six César nominations, for best director, editing, music, supporting actor, supporting actress and screenplay, but won none of them. The French title roughly means "a very discreet hero", and in Germany the film is known as Das Leben: Eine Lüge.