Saul Goodman, The Auteur
“’s All Good, Man”
So, Season 5 of Better Call Saul ended and I am dying to talk about the filmmaking skills of Saul Goodman. One of the quirks that I always liked about Jimmy McGill a.k.a Saul Goodman is that he is in love with movies. There is always a routine with his love interest and confidante Kim Wexler, where they sit down almost on a daily basis and watch movies. I don’t know anyone else with a regular job, who has watched movies of so much variety. Often in every third episode you would see Jimmy referencing a movie or another to some character. This quirk obviously makes Jimmy a little out of touch with reality. This quirk, I suppose is not Jimmy’s but perhaps Bob Odenkirk’s or the show’s writers. No one who is a lawyer would be such a cinephile, and I do not mean it in a way that it is not possible but in a way that our modern lives do not allow us to indulge in pleasures of cinematic arts as much as Jimmy’s character indulges in them. Whatever the reason for this quirk, I absolutely love it. And the very reason that Jimmy has watched so many movies, somewhere deep down, he is inclined to make them too. And that’s what happens over the course of five seasons so far. Jimmy/Saul Goodman is always working with his rag-tag crew of Film school students to make one advertisement or another. And it is not his choice to shoot these ads, but his approach towards making these ads is what makes him an interesting auteur in a lot of ways.
Some of the movies which are any cinephile’s treasure that are mentioned by Jimmy are as follows (I’m excluding the most common references like Star Wars new Hope, Top Gun etc.):
Network, Shining, 25th Hour, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves (Jimmy has a thing for Kevin Costner), Ice Station Zebra, Fight Club, White Heat, Sophie’s Choice, Doctor Zhivago and there are many more.
We all are storytellers, there is no doubt about it. Anything we say to anyone else, or sometimes to ourselves too is storytelling. Visual storytelling is something that like all things comes with practice. And it is Saul Goodman and not Jimmy, who uses Jimmy’s knowledge of watching movies to present us the characteristic traits of an auteur. Being an auteur has to do more with solving a practical problem than finding the perfect light for your shot. For example, Godard’s use of a Shopping Cart to function as a Dolly in Breathless. Likewise, Jimmy’s use of Stair lift to act as Dolly for his commercial. It is thus understandable that when Jimmy loses his Bar license for a year, the job he tries his hand is at filming adverts for small business.
I’ve never been to film school, a lot of auteurs of a certain era didn’t go either, and Jimmy too didn’t go to a film school either. Thus, shooting whatever becomes the practice that is needed to hone the craft. I identify with Jimmy in a sense that when I am working on a project for clients, there is always limited budget, no extravagant sets or location, limited scope of trained actors. These are all the restrictions being forced. Often the cameraman too hasn’t seen as many movies, and barely understands the movie reference I am making about a particular shot. Usually, there is very limited story-boarding involved as the clients never settle on one, and if they settle on one, they change it often. Receiving the payments is a constant headache as ever. I’m sure a lot of people working in this domain of trying to create Art are often left frustrated with the stuff we have to do to simply put a nicely made commercial on the client’s table. These acts of honing the craft in obscurity and restraint, for paying the bills is an essential rite of passage. And this is what makes me identify with Jimmy and his eventual transition into Saul Goodman.
“What happened to Showmanship?”
Saul Goodman is all about showmanship, even when the ship is sinking. He is the auteur who always has to look calm and look after his crew before himself, as he does in one of the episodes where he pays the crew first knowing that nothing will be left for him. His film crew, the so-called film students are skilled technicians of some sorts, but they lack the vision needed to execute a project from start to finish. They lack in creative ideas to solve the problems. It is always the ingenious of Saul Goodman’s auteurship that leads to fruition of the commercial that they shoot. I in no way mean to imply that every commercial ever made by Saul Goodman & Co is great and oozing with Art. No. But what is interesting to note is that Saul understands the process of filmmaking perhaps by the virtue of his movie watching. Saul Goodman has the vision and fortitude to execute his plans. Good or Bad, is different question. Step #1 is always, always to have a finished product. You can always improve the quality; it is being in the ring to fight for your vision is what counts. If only in Season 6 of Better Call Saul, Saul Goodman attempts to shoot a movie!
