In August 2022, poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths was enjoying a quiet morning in her New York home when a panicked friend called with devastating news. Her husband, Sir Salman Rushdie, had been stabbed multiple times the previous night during a speaking engagement nearly 400 miles away. Rushdie, who had married Griffiths just a year prior, was fighting for his life as blurry images of the chaotic assault played on television screens.
Griffiths urgently chartered a plane to reach the hospital, uncertain if her husband would survive. Once it became clear that Rushdie was likely to live, he suggested she document his recovery process. “By which I meant something very modest: maybe she would take a picture of me on her iPhone every couple of days,” Rushdie recalled dryly. However, Griffiths had more ambitious plans for the footage.
Those video diaries now form a central component of a new documentary by filmmaker Alex Gibney. Drawing inspiration from the work of Dennis Potter, Gibney has crafted a powerful portrait of Rushdie’s tumultuous life and the severe aftermath of the attack. The film explores not only the physical violence but also the profound personal journey of survival that followed.
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