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Dan Glickman served as the 26th United States Secretary of Agriculture, a post he held from 1995 until 2001. Previously he was a Democratic representative for Kansas in Congress for[…]

“The Godfather” and Clint Eastwood.

Question: What inspires you?

Dan Glickman: Good movies. I like movies. I mean some people might take the job because it pays a fair salary, and that helps. But the main thing is I've always liked movies. And even before I had this job, my wife and I would see probably about 100 movies a year. And I also have a son who is a film producer in Los Angeles. He's with a company called Spy Glass Entertainment, and he actually was in the business before I was.

Question: Which films inspire you?

Dan Glickman:  You know, the movies like “Gandhi” inspired me and “Chariots of Fire”. “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart was a great inspirational movie about politics. It had a tremendous impact on it. But movies like “The Godfather” series inspired me. I think “The Godfather” I and II are two of the greatest movies probably that have ever been produced in terms of total thing. I mean there are big movies and small movies. I saw a movie that was actually made in Germany called “The Lives of Others” that won the Best Foreign Picture. Outstanding movie. So I don’t have any one set of movies that are my favorite more than others. But there’s a great diversity movies out there and I like most of them.

Question: To whom do you look for inspiration within the industry?

Dan Glickman: Well I think Clint Eastwood is probably the most interesting and historically successful film person, both acting and producing. You know he’s gone through “Mystic River”, the “Million Dollar Baby”. There’s this whole series of these modern movies, and he seems to really . . . Everything he touches tends to be really high quality stuff. And obviously Steven Spielberg has been, overall, one of the greatest producers/directors of all time. But in terms of the acting side, no. I don’t really have one particular actor or actress that I’m that fond of one way or the other.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

 

 

 


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