Bop Scotch

An early film by Jordan Belson from 1952. “[Belson’s] early films animated real objects (pavements in Bop Scotch [1952]) and scroll paintings prepared like film strips with successive images (Mandala [1953]). Belson subsequently withdrew these films from circulation as imperfect and primitive, but they already reflect his refined plastic sensibility, fine color sense, and superb sense of dynamic structure. They also foreshadow his more accomplished expressions of mystical concepts, Bop Scotch seeming to reveal a hidden soul and life-force in “inanimate” objects.”