Rushdie film: ‘It’s not just about me. It’s about freedom’
Daniel Nelson
Prolific and inventive as he is, writer Salman Rushdie turned his attempted assassination into a book, Knife. Now the book has been turned into a dramatic documentary, Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie.
Because cameras are ubiquitous, the attack was filmed: it’s horrifying and is further dramatised by Rushdie’s running commentary on what he remembers seeing and thinking during those 27 seconds when he received 27 stab wounds, one of them in the eye, before the assailant was wrestled off him.
Sir Salman’s six weeks in hospital and rehabilitation were also filmed, by his fifth wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and there’s dramatic news footage of the uproar and consequent Scarlet Pimpernel life sparked by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie, to be rewarded with $6 million bounty. The fatwa was a response to Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses. He went into police-protected hiding for nine years but several people associated with publication of the book were murdered or injured and hundreds of others - most of who had not read the book, like his knife-wielding assailant - demonstrated against it.
The film is rooted in the intimate footage of his recovery, but it’s really a fascinating biography of a controversial writer and a call for tolerance and freedom of expression. His boyhood in India and his job in advertising in the UK are part of the story.
Both the violence of the response to The Satanic Verses and the injuries and healing sustained three decades later in 2022 make visceral viewing, leavened by the tenderness between husband and wife.
It’s filmed in high-octane style which might add some general cinemagoers to the art house elite, and Rushdie, now 79, comes across as intelligent, lively, witty and vain and not altogether likeable. He’s not one to waste material, and within weeks of knowing he would survive he decided a film should be made (“We began to think maybe there’s some merit in offering it to a wider audience … We said we want to make a record, because it’s not just about me. It’s about freedom. It’s about the ability to say your truth.”)
He says he has always loved cinema, though the insertion into the story of clips from other films looks unnecessary.
Apart from remembering the horrifying attack and heartening recovery, Knife is a dramatic reminder of the dangers of intolerance and proclivity to violence