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:
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