Why so silent?

In “Visual Cues From the Silent Era” (June 8), Emanuel Levy refers to D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” as a “seminal epic” but doesn’t mention that it was a paean to the Ku Klux Klan. Omission of the film’s function as racist propaganda is particularly glaring in light of Levy’s brief comments about Griffith’s “naive philosophy” and the “moral and religious ambitions” of his filmmaking.

Jonathan Rotter

Los Angeles