In the Form of the Letter ‘X’

This film is predicated upon the quasi-fictional discovery that Melville’s name and my name mean the same thing: both came from an old French verb “meler” meaning “to come together, to meet, to intersect” and both are names of towns at crossroads. By exhaustive translation, I reduce them both to “X,” the Greek letter chi (as in chimera), and the rhetorical trope “chiasmus.” The structure of the film is chiasmic (that is, it contains two parallel sections, but the second is reformed/deformed in reverse) and functions as a signature. The text is from Melville’s “Pierre” and is written chiasmatically in the second section. The film is concerned with names in general, with the question of naming and identity, and with problems attendant to naming (eg. paternity). (MC)