The Kill Bill Diary

Bill Death Do Us Part

The Kill Bill Diary
by David Carradine
Methuen ISBN: 9780713687781

Well this is a really breezy book and, as a result, this is probably going to be a really short review.

It’s not breezy because it has no substance... although, to be fair, in terms of full on details about the shooting of Kill Bill (Parts One and Two as it came to be), there’s isn’t a great deal of substance to be found in details of the actual production of the film. But that’s not the reason it’s so.... well... as I said, it’s just a pleasurable breeze to read through. No. The reason is because David Carradine is such an accomplished writer and has one of those useful writing styles that feels like you’re just sitting in a bar next to him, listening to the man talk. It’s a joy to read and... oh yeah... not without some interesting observations and stories, for sure.

This journal is split into a prelude, followed by a long Part One and then a shorter Part Two. I’m guessing the structure is meant to mirror the release pattern of the movies to some extent. In the prelude, Mr. Carradine tells us how he met Quentin Tarantino (the writer and director of Kill Bill, should anyone here be in doubt) and how he wandered into a long courting session in terms of chance meetings over the years to gain the role of Bill, the man everyone is talking about in the movie and who remains mostly absent from the first film. Or half of the film, depending on your opinion of the number count listed on the various Tarantino posters over the years.

And that’s the thing, this isn’t just about the shooting of Kill Bill... it’s also about the preparation for Kill Bill such as the rigorous, all day training sessions lasting many months that some of the cast, including Carradine, were put through to get in shape for the picture. It also looks at Carradine’s daily life throughout the whole period from pre-shoot to a gruelling selection of worldwide publicity tours for both films and shows him as someone who is, it has to be said... a bit of a cool cat.

Now I’m not someone who is that familiar with Carradine’s work. I never used to watch his famous TV show Kung Fu when it was on in the early 1970s but I do remember having a Kung Fu magazine with a big, fold out poster of Carradine that hung on my wall during that period. I don’t exactly know why my parents got it for me but... I suppose they used to like the show so, there it was in my room and the man used to watch over me while I slept, I guess.

I was aware of him, though, in a very interesting film I saw on television in the 1980s called The Silent Flute. I remember I really liked it and, decades later, I bought a Region 1 US DVD release of the film by Blue Underground under an alternate title, Circle Of Iron. Carradine remarks on the title changes of that film himself in this diary and, as it turns out, the man was a bit of an artist and all round free spirit. He made that flute in that film, as he has made a fair few over the years. He used to play them with his group until his untimely death a few years after Kill Bill and I was startled to discover, via this book, that the flute he uses in Kill Bill is, indeed, the same flute from The Silent Flute. In fact, as I discovered from reading this, one of the things Tarantino does to get people settled into his movies, especially when they are written for a specific person, is to have his art and costume department go around to the actor’s house and borrow loads of stuff from said actor's rooms and wardrobes in order to get everything reproduced by the various studio people. This is so that the actor will feel comfortable on set, half of which will be replicas of what he already has laying around... and be able to get into the role. I suspect Tarantino doesn’t do that with everyone mind but, it’s certainly what he seemed to be doing with Carradine.

And, like I said, its a very relaxing read and I learned a lot about Carradine. Enough, certainly, to make me want to read the autobiography he wrote many years before this one. I’ll have to get myself a copy of that at some point in the future. He comes across as a man very much at peace with himself and very much in love with his wife Annie, which makes his death a little down the line even more tragic and regrettable. He also had a very honest and straight forward attitude towards life, at least that’s how he came across in this book and not as the ‘crazy person’ he quotes from another famous writer/actor who read his earlier autobiography. Although I suspect that’s also true. Also quite witty at times such as when he describes one of a few times his car dies when he’s on the way to somewhere...

“Then I start to smell burning Bakelite, one of my favourite aromas. Especially in the morning. Smells like... expensive repairs.”

I’m sure most of my readers will have no trouble placing the movie quote Mr. Carradine is paraphrasing here.

As far as insight into Tarantino himself goes... well, he comes off fairly well, if a little demanding of his crew. I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Tarantino myself in that, I really like a lot of his films and think many of them... Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds especially... are great works of art. However, whenever I see him interviewed he always comes across as way too full of himself and arrogant to the nth degree. Having said that, every time I read a first hand account from some actor or director or musician who has spent time with him, it always comes across that they always click straight away and fall in love with the charm of the guy right off the bat, using the common language of movies. So I think the only way I’m ever going to find out what this guy is really like is to hang out with him and have a conversation sometime. So, yeah, that’s probably never going to happen so I shall continue to admire his art from afar and, probably not have much good or bad to say about him other than what I can see from what he puts on the screen. Carradine, of course, absolutely loved him and it's evident on many a page that he believed (and he was possibly correct) that he was working on the best film of his career. And I’d probably have to take Carradine at his word in terms of how Tarantino is because Mr. C comes across so well in his words.

There are also, as you’d expect, encounters with other celebrities of the movie world and he has a lot of good things to say about many of his co-stars on Kill Bill. Uma Thurman and Michael Madsen both come across incredibly well, for instance. And Harry Knowles gets a few mentions (not to mention some reprints of his Kill Bill set reports from Aint It Cool News in this tome) too. There’s an interesting sentence at the end of one of the chapters about Knowles and I can’t tell if Carradine meant it in a joking way or if it was a bit of a put down of the man but, I guess I never will know now. Also, there are a few instances in the text where, obviously since the film was made by Miramax, Harvey Weinstein gets a mention. It’s interesting how a general 'off the cuff' remark made by Carradine describing people present on a night out can now, in retrospect, be seen in something of a different light since the whole ‘me too’ movement got going but it seems pretty clear to me that Carradine was certainly unaware and, possibly, naive to some of the things going on during those years. If he had been aware... no telling what he might have done, I guess.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about The Kill Bill Diary except, oh look, it didn’t turn out to be too short a review after all. I think you’ve probably go the gist of what I’m trying to say here though. As in... David Carradine, with a witty and laid back observational style that cuts through life sharper than a Hanzo sword, wrote a very ‘easy on the eyes and intellect’ journal of his experiences in making Kill Bill with Quentin Tarantino. It’s entertaining, fun and definitely worth some of your time if you are into such things. Definitely pick this one up if are. Read it.