Brokerage and Production in the American and French Entertainment Industries

Violaine Roussel is professor of sociology at the University of Paris VIII. Denise Bielby is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

• Chapter 1: Introduction: Cultural Brokerage in the American and French Film and Television Industries, Violaine Roussel and Denise Bielby Part I. Agents, Agenting, Agencies Chapter 2: Twenty-Four Years of Agenting, Harry J. UflandChapter 3: Talent Agencies and the Market for Screenwriters: From the Origins of Packaging to Today’s Transformations, Denise BielbyChapter 4: The Talent Agent’s Role in Producing Artists’ Symbolic and Commercial Value in France, Delphine NaudierChapter 5: The Market for Actresses: Gender, Reputation, and Intermediation in French Pornography, Mathieu TrachmanChapter 6: The Emergence of Hollywood Agents, Tom Kemper Chapter 7: “It’s Not the Network: It’s the Relationship”: The Relational Work of Hollywood Talent Agents, Violaine RousselPart II. Behind the Scenes of ProductionChapter 8: The Choice between a Good Job and a Good Life, Bill MechanicChapter 9: The Importance of Being Ordinary: Brokering Talent in the New-TV Era, Laura Grindstaff and Vicki MayerChapter 10: “This Is the Girl”: The Social Division of Recruitment in the French Film Industry, Vincent CardonChapter 11: Film Offices as Brokers: Cultivating and Connecting Local Talent to Hollywood, Candace Jones and Pacey FosterChapter 12: Overlapping Temporalities in Project-Based Work: The Case of Independent Producers in the French Movie Industry, Laure de Verdalle

Movies are the heart of the entertainment business, a business that revolves around notoriously elusive notions of ‘talent.’ This fascinating collection of case studies peeks behind the screen to show us how talent is identified, valued, and mobilized by professionals who unobtrusively influence every element of the production process. Each chapter features richly detailed descriptions of how the business works and conceptually sophisticated arguments about the inscrutable relationship between art and commerce.