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Movies have shown our country — and the world — the American story

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For much of the twentieth century, America’s greatest export wasn’t a product or a military alliance. It was a collection of stories.

Through movies, television, and music, American culture reached people who would never visit the United States, yet still felt they knew it. Hollywood was often at the center of that exchange. Film’s first great advantage was that it didn’t need words to tell a story, but everything changed once Hollywood found its sound.

Silent movies were among the first truly global art forms because they required so little translation. You could watch Charlie Chaplin almost anywhere and understand the story. Grief looks the same in Tokyo as it does in Buenos Aires, and so does a pratfall.

Then, sound arrived. With the release of “The Jazz Singer” in 1927 and each of the “talkies” that followed,audiences around the world were no longer just watching Hollywood stories; they were hearing a distinctly American voice.

That changed the appeal of Hollywood, and of entertainment as an American export. Audiences around the world were no longer just watching Hollywood stories; they were hearing a distinctly American voice. The characters sounded different, spoke freely, challenged authority casually and carried themselves with a confidence that felt modern. America had long occupied a special place in the world’s imagination as a country where people could reinvent themselves. Sound gave that idea a voice.

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America’s entertainment industry also benefited from something few other national cinemas could claim: It was built by people who came from somewhere else. Hollywood reflected the sensibilities of a country shaped by immigrants and their descendants, drawing from different traditions, perspectives, and experiences while blending them into something distinctly American.

That........

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