Reclaiming Joy in a Mechanical World w/ Filmmaker Nick Bash

Reclaiming Joy in a Mechanical World w/ Filmmaker Nick Bash

Author: Society of G.K. Chesterton April 7, 2026 Duration: 34:08

Joe Grabowski sits down with Nick Bash, a Biola University alum who studied filmmaking alongside the Rhetoric Honors Great Books Program, to discuss his senior thesis short film The Last Bonaparte—a loose adaptation of Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill.

In This Episode:

  • How film, as a relatively young art form, is still learning to match the depth and immersion of literature
  • What Chesterton's Orthodoxy revealed to Nick about joy, and how that discovery drove the making of The Last Bonaparte
  • The communal nature of filmmaking and how the process of telling a story begins to mirror its themes
  • How setting the film in 2084 draws on Orwellian themes to sharpen Chesterton's critique of standardization and bureaucracy
  • Why Tolkien's philosophical writings on creativity convinced Nick that faithful Christian storytelling means crafting a story, not a sermon

Chapters:

  • 00:00: Introduction
  • 00:36: Nick's Background: Biola, Great Books, and Chesterton
  • 03:06: Film as a Young Art Form
  • 05:50: Drama, Embodiment, and the Communal Art of Filmmaking
  • 09:39: Film as Synthesis of the Arts
  • 14:02: Reclaiming Joy in a Machine-Oriented World
  • 18:52: Chesterton, Orwell, and the Year 1984
  • 25:34: Tolkien on Adventure and Sub-Creation
  • 28:42: Story vs. Allegory

Resources Mentioned:

FOLLOW US Instagram | Facebook | X

SUPPORT

Consider making a donation: chesterton.org/give

Visit our Shop: chesterton.org/shop

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios


Hosted by Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski, Uncommon Sense-The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton applies a timeless, joyful, and profoundly insightful worldview to modern life. This isn't a dry historical review, but a lively conversation that uses G.K. Chesterton's own writings and sprawling legacy as a starting point to examine just about anything. We might delve into the paradoxes of faith, the wonder of ordinary things, or the humor in politics, all through that distinctive Chestertonian lens which finds truth in paradox and gratitude in contradiction. You'll hear discussions that feel both refreshingly old-fashioned and urgently relevant, exploring topics in education, spirituality, and daily life with a sense of intellectual adventure. The aim is to recapture a sense of awe and common sense, which Chesterton argued is anything but common. Each episode invites you to step into a broader, more colorful world, one where logic and wonder comfortably coexist. This podcast, brought to you by the Society of G.K. Chesterton, is for anyone curious about seeing familiar things in a startling new light, finding depth in laughter, and discovering the radical nature of gratitude. For feedback, the hosts can be reached at podcast@chesterton.org.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Uncommon Sense - The Official Podcast of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Podcast Episodes
Why Fulton Sheen Called G.K. Chesterton His Greatest Influence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:06
A seminarian once wrote Fulton Sheen asking to write a master's thesis on his work, and Sheen wrote back telling him to write on G.K. Chesterton instead. Ahead of Sheen's beatification, Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski…
Chesterton is the Antidote to the Illness of our Age [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:36
Somebody once wrote a fairy tale where the quest that wins the princess was to find a single newspaper that didn't contain an article by G.K. Chesterton. Dr. Susan Hanssen wrote her doctoral dissertation on him and now t…
G.K. Chesterton's Devotion to the Mother of God [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:26
G.K. Chesterton spent his life writing about Our Lady, and the poems are still doing their work. Maria Romine, drama teacher at Chesterton Academy of St. Louis, traces her entry into the Catholic Church to a rosary hande…
Chesterton's Thoughts on Mistakes in Modern Education [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:11
G.K. Chesterton gave an entire quarter of What's Wrong with the World to what he called the mistake about the child, and his verdict was blunt: the schoolmaster works not for the parent but against him. In this solo back…
G.K. Chesterton's Conversion and its Augustinian Parallels [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:29
On the feasts of Saints Monica and Augustine, Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski trace G.K. Chesterton's long road into the Catholic Church, beginning with his 1903 newspaper battle with Blatchford and McCabe and ending…
G.K. Chesterton vs. Communism and Socialism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:44
In 2016, Danish politician Ida Auken described the year 2030 as a happy place to live: no car, no house, no appliances, no privacy, and a living room lent out for business meetings whenever she steps away. Joe Grabowski…
What G.K. Chesterton Said about St. John Vianney [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:43
For the memorial of St. John Vianney, Joe Grabowski reads a rarely reprinted G.K. Chesterton essay—The Challenge of the Curé d'Ars—written as an afterword to F.J. Sheed's 1929 translation of Henri Ghéon's The Secret of t…
G.K. Chesterton on the Death of Literacy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:02
A new Atlantic cover story argues that America is sliding into a postliterate age—but G.K. Chesterton diagnosed the same collapse in 1928, years before Marshall McLuhan or Neil Postman raised the alarm. Joe Grabowski goe…
The Chestertonian Writer on the Road to Canonization [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:15
On the heels of the announcement that Sigrid Undset's cause for canonization has been opened, Grettelyn Darkey and Joe Grabowski consider the Nobel laureate through the lens of G.K. Chesterton—the writer she admired, col…