From Vanity Fair · Dan Adler · · 3m
Salman Rushdie turned his stabbing into a love story
After the 2022 attack, the author and his wife filmed their recovery, creating an unflinching documentary about survival and art.
In brief
After the 2022 attack, the author and his wife filmed their recovery, creating an unflinching documentary about survival and art. Art can transform senseless violence into meaning when survivors reclaim their story through creative documentation. Originally reported by Vanity Fair.
She pressed record at the hospital
After Rushdie was stabbed in 2022, his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths made a striking choice amid the chaos: she started filming.
The footage became a documentary
The hospital recordings form the core of Knife, Alex Gibney's new film about Rushdie's recovery and his career defined by violence.
The attacker barely read the book
Hadi Matar, 24, learned about the 1989 fatwa in New Jersey. He said he'd only read a couple pages of The Satanic Verses before attacking.
“a couple pages”
Art from senseless violence
The film contrasts Matar's incuriosity with Rushdie and Griffiths's efforts to make meaning and art out of the attack.
Standing where he fell down
Rushdie visited the prison and attack site. He found resolution: "I was standing up in the place where I fell down."
“I was standing up in the place where I fell down”
He asked her to document it
Days after the attack, when they knew he'd survive, Rushdie asked Griffiths to photograph him every few days on her iPhone.
A professional camera arrived
Griffiths, a photographer, asked a friend to send her real camera. They decided to document their experience and tell their story.
Returning to their identities
The filming allowed them to return to being storytellers. For Griffiths, the videos became intimate diaries of their survival.
He hadn't seen the footage
They filmed on and off for over a year. Rushdie didn't watch until he was home and feeling better, when Griffiths projected it.
The quality was so high
When Rushdie finally saw the footage, he thought it was so well-made that it might have an audience beyond their family.
Alex Gibney's nonlinear vision
Gibney wanted a film that moved through time, covering not just the attack but Rushdie's whole life as a writer.
Private people going public
Both are instinctively private, yet they made this vulnerable film public. They felt people needed to see the raw, gripping experience.
A true crime love story
Rushdie saw it as more than violence and near death. People would come for a true crime story and also get a love story.
“It's not just a story about violence and near death; it's also a story about love.”
She didn't cry in the trauma ward
Griffiths got into "badass mode" during the chaos, too focused to cry. The film later allowed her to grapple with PTSD and rage.
Art is not therapy
Rushdie insists you don't make a film to treat yourself. But returning to the attack site did provide emotional release.
“art is art and therapy is therapy”
The attack footage was evidence
The stabbing video wasn't available until after the trial. It was considered evidence and only released after being shown to the jury.
Not trauma porn
Gibney saved the attack footage for the end, intercutting it with their return. Starting with it would have blown the film apart.
Like In Cold Blood
Rushdie compared the structure to Truman Capote's book, which withholds the murder scene so readers know the victims and killers first.
You feel it more
When you know the person something is happening to, you feel it more. The audience gets to know them before seeing the violence.
“when you know the person to whom something is happening, you feel it more”
Here's the gist
Art can transform senseless violence into meaning when survivors reclaim their story through creative documentation.
