Alex Gibney's Knife: Salman Rushdie's Survival Story on Screen

Alex Gibney's documentary Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie tells the story of how Salman Rushdie survived the assassination attempt on him in New York in 2022 — and kept writing.

The film draws on Rushdie's own memoir and is narrated extensively by the author himself. It uses intimate hospital-bedside video footage shot by his wife, the poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths. It includes stomach-turningly explicit shots of Rushdie's damaged eye and, finally, horrendous scenes of the attack itself.

What emerges from the film is Rushdie's courage, according to the review. His remarkably level-headed, calm and unafraid writerly voice insists on the primacy of literature, freedom of expression and the life of the imagination.

What ground does the documentary cover?

Gibney traces Rushdie's life from his childhood in Mumbai — Rushdie, with a certain unselfconscious locution of his class and background, still calls it "Bombay" — through key stations of his biography:

• Years of bullying and unhappiness at an English public school
• Cambridge and London
• His day job in advertising, where he remains cheerfully delighted by his successful campaign for Aero chocolate
• His breakthrough with the magic-realist creation myth Midnight's Children

The film shows ample footage of Rushdie in black tie at awards, which is how he appeared in the media. A crude jihadi placard actually shows him in a bow tie.

Why does it matter?

The review calls the documentary excellent: a terrifying and inspiring story of survival. Beyond the violence it documents, the film's core is Rushdie's refusal to be silenced — a case for literature and free expression made in the author's own calm voice, from the aftermath of an attack meant to end both.