Out of the Clear Blue Sky

Is this a sentimental documentary erring on the side of historical rewrite or a healing probe into the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy? Bearing in mind its focus is on what happened within one company in the aftermath of the fall of the Twin Towers, we debate over whether this doc gets it right.

The background is that Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is a financial services firm founded in 1945. At the time of the attacks, the firm had grown to be one of the largest, if not the largest, bond trading firms in America. It had more than 5,000 institutional clients, being one of only 21 firms that traded US bonds with The Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was located on the doomed 101-106 floors of the World Trade Center.

Howard Lutnick, the focus of our dissension in this doc review, was named President and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald in 1991 and Chairman in 1996. His reputation for ruthlessness may be as true as it is commonplace in the stratospheric salary circles of investment bankers working in the world's top financial centers. If CF closed shop, Lutnick and his buds would have had a lot to lose.

We agree on the facts. On September 11, 2001, CF lost 658 of its 960 New York employees in the World Trade Center attacks. A few days later, in a miraculous last-ditch effort with a money deal from Morgan Guaranty Trust Company (subsequently JP Morgan), CF re-opened its doors with a skeleton crew. On Sept. 19, the firm pledged to distribute 25 percent of its profits for the next five years, along with ten years of health care, to families of its 658 former employees. These profits would otherwise have gone to the partners of the firm.

Wilkinson: This was a gift from the partners to the families of the deceased employees, and this film makes sure the viewer gets the picture. By 2006, the company had completed its promise, having paid a total of $180 million, with an additional $17 million from a relief fund run by Lutnick's sister, Edie.

Lutnick and the rest of the firm's leadership have milked this gesture of generosity for all it is worth. In the eyes of some, they have milked it for more than it is worth.

The complexity of this situation lies in the uniqueness of the terrible tragedy that caused it. There is simply no comparison to a firm compensating the survivors of employees killed through natural disaster. They had no obligation to do anything. The question is, have the survivors been used as public relations pawns to secure and cement bond sales for Cantor Fitzgerald?

The answer, to paraphrase Mr. Dylan, is blowin' in the wind.

Questad: Who cares if the survivors are being played or not? When the Pentagon was hit on the same day, we didn't hear the government offering special deals beyond policy to the families involved. What about the rest of the Trade Tower companies that were hit – did we hear of generous family packages for their workers? Furthermore, when the Columbine and Sandy Hook student massacres took place and the Oklahoma City bombing rocked our world, did we see the government rush to families with extra compensation?

The point is, the immediate reaction of Lutnick, who also lost his brother that day, was compassion, not avarice or self-protection. There might also be some divine, if not coincidental, providence involved. Lutnick had been prepared. At age 18 he lost his mother and then a year later his father. The middle child of three, he banded with his siblings for support. Though abandoned by family members, Lutnick's college gave him a full scholarship in response to his loss. Through grief, bonding, resiliency and a college that cared, the Lutnicks succeeded.

Lutnick's tears on CNN in the aftermath of the attacks were not fake. His outreach to all the affected families was from a deep empathy that came from personal experience.

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4 days after 9/11 Mr Lutnick ceased salary payments to people who perished in the attached. Made sense. If you don't work, you dont earn.

Then families of the dead attacked Cantor for doing this.

How is the terror attack fault of Cantor company?

It is everyone's responsibility to have life insurance policy bought, no ensure their family id not left in the limbo after tragic event.

It is NOT Cantor's responsibility to give anything to their families.

If families of the dead have any claims to make for consequences of that attack, they should sue Saudi Arabia or Al Qaeda, which were aiding and abetting 9/11.

Cantor is not babysitting company but run for profit. You lost your relative as a result of 3rd party action, that;'s not Cantor's fault.

End of story.

Sorry, but that is what this is. As stopped watching as soon as one of the bosses said, we lost, 658, the NYFD only lost 300 and something, are you kidding me, those brave men ran into a building they more than likely knew they would not leave to SAVE lives, big difference.

Out of the Clear Blue Sky is a film that ostensibly tows the line of being insensitive in the public's eye, as it concerns how one company was left in shambles following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. It runs the risk of undercutting the value of human life and focusing entirely on profit margins and business success. Director Danielle Gardner seems to recognize this idea early on, and with that, makes Out of the Clear Blue Sky a surprisingly emotional film about a CEO rebuilding his company in the wake of 9/11 for the hundreds of employees he lost. This isn't a film hijacked by cold, corporate insensitivity nor is it a film that has an emotional core tacked on in efforts to manipulate the viewer for cheap tears. It's a story told with a business perspective with an undeniable human center that keeps peeking through.

The documentary concerns the bond-trading company Cantor Fitzgerald and its CEO Howard Lutnick's efforts to rebuild his company, which was located between the one-hundred and first and one-hundred and fifth floor of the World Trade Center, following 9/11. On that day, Lutnick lost six-hundred and fifty-eight of his nine-hundred and fifty employees, with numerous declared missing days after the event occurred. After both towers fell, over eight-hundred employees were missing, and Lutnick had to find a way to work through the grief to not only save his company, but compensate his employees' families.

Following the attack, JP Morgan gave Cantor Fitzgerald one week to come up with an outline on how the company would be run or make a comeback, with JP Morgan owning the company if they failed to do so. Lutnick and some other surviving members of the attack got together and worked through the disarray to get Cantor Fitzgerald up and running again. Lutnick, in addition, went on numerous news networks to affirm his efforts to try and reassemble the company, despite being ill-equipped with resources. Imagine trying to recall the financial records of the company and its employees when the accounting department no longer exists, along with no human resources department, employee records department, and trading departments. We see that departments that once had one-hundred and forty people were reduced to two or three people, at most, making any sense of stability impossible.

Out of the Clear Blue Sky shows Lutnick's tireless pursuit to compensate employees' families and the immense backlash he faced because of the time he took to do so properly. Lutnick's lack of a formal accounting department, on top of trying to rebuild the company, made financial compensation something that was hard to do immediately, and especially considering the months following the attacks were met with intense grieving, the emotional response to Lutnick's meticulous efforts was negative. Families of deceased employees from Cantor Fitzgerald regularly went on TV or conducted interviews with newspapers calling Lutnick a fraud, who simply didn't care about the families and wanted personal financial compensation. This is an understandable reaction, but the effects nonetheless frustrated Lutnick, who was doing all he could to make the best out of a catastrophic situation. I'm sure numerous CEOs would've pushed on and created an entirely new company, forgetting the old one and that its hundreds of now deceased employees even existed.

The point Gardner, along with Lutnick, makes with Out of the Clear Blue Sky is that this was a situation that had no rulebook whatsoever. Lutnick affirms this numerous times in the documentary, and considering the film is centered around him, and his emotional response to the event is still high, we see a sense of honesty in his words and actions. It still surprises me how this documentary refrains from being one centered on business rather than pathos or human interest, but Gardner not only finds a middle ground, but keeps things relatively grounded in some level of emotion, even while talking business. Considering this is one of the first documentaries I know of to tackle 9/11 from a business perspective, the film does a remarkable job at not only being concise but being aware of those affected.

Directed by: Danielle Gardner.