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Plenty of great female actors have appeared in rom-coms. Usually, when aiming to earn an Academy Award, they need to shift for more serious roles. The late Diane Keaton, whose recent passing occurred, took an opposite path and made it look seamless ease. Her debut significant performance was in the classic The Godfather, about as serious an film classic as has ever been made. But that same year, she reprised the part of the character Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a movie version of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate serious dramas with romantic comedies across the seventies, and the lighter fare that earned her the Academy Award for outstanding actress, altering the genre for good.

The Academy Award Part

The Oscar statuette was for Annie Hall, helmed and co-scripted by Woody Allen, with Keaton as the title character, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. Allen and Keaton dated previously prior to filming, and continued as pals for the rest of her life; in interviews, Keaton portrayed Annie as a perfect image of herself, as seen by Allen. One could assume, then, to believe her portrayal required little effort. However, her versatility in her performances, both between her Godfather performance and her funny films with Allen and throughout that very movie, to discount her skill with rom-coms as merely exuding appeal – although she remained, of course, highly charismatic.

Shifting Genres

Annie Hall famously served as the director’s evolution between broader, joke-heavy films and a realistic approach. Therefore, it has numerous jokes, imaginative scenes, and a loose collage of a love story recollection mixed with painful truths into a fated love affair. In a similar vein, Diane, presides over a transition in U.S. romantic comedies, embodying neither the fast-talking screwball type or the glamorous airhead popularized in the 1950s. Rather, she mixes and matches aspects of both to forge a fresh approach that seems current today, halting her assertiveness with nervous pauses.

Observe, for instance the sequence with the couple first connect after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (although only just one drives). The dialogue is quick, but meanders unexpectedly, with Keaton navigating her nervousness before concluding with of her whimsical line, a expression that captures her nervous whimsy. The movie physicalizes that tone in the next scene, as she makes blasé small talk while navigating wildly through Manhattan streets. Afterward, she composes herself singing It Had to Be You in a cabaret.

Complexity and Freedom

These aren’t examples of the character’s unpredictability. Across the film, there’s a dimensionality to her light zaniness – her post-hippie openness to try drugs, her fear of crustaceans and arachnids, her refusal to be manipulated by Alvy’s efforts to shape her into someone apparently somber (for him, that implies focused on dying). In the beginning, Annie could appear like an strange pick to earn an award; she plays the female lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t lead to either changing enough to make it work. But Annie evolves, in ways both observable and unknowable. She merely avoids becoming a more compatible mate for the male lead. Numerous follow-up films borrowed the surface traits – neurotic hang-ups, eccentric styles – not fully copying her final autonomy.

Enduring Impact and Mature Parts

Perhaps Keaton felt cautious of that tendency. Following her collaboration with Allen concluded, she stepped away from romantic comedies; Baby Boom is really her only one from the entirety of the 1980s. However, in her hiatus, the character Annie, the persona even more than the free-form film, became a model for the category. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, credits much of her love story success to Keaton’s skill to portray intelligence and flightiness together. This rendered Keaton like a timeless love story icon while she was in fact portraying more wives (whether happily, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or more strained, as in The First Wives Club) and/or mothers (see that Christmas movie or Because I Said So) than unattached women finding romance. Even in her comeback with Woody Allen, they’re a long-married couple brought closer together by comic amateur sleuthing – and she slips into that role smoothly, wonderfully.

Yet Diane experienced an additional romantic comedy success in 2003 with Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a younger-dating cad (actor Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? One more Oscar recognition, and a complete niche of love stories where senior actresses (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) reclaim their love lives. A key element her passing feels so sudden is that Keaton was still making these stories up until recently, a regular cinema fixture. Now fans are turning from assuming her availability to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the romantic comedy as it is recognized. Should it be difficult to recall present-day versions of those earlier stars who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, that’s probably because it’s uncommon for an actor of her talent to dedicate herself to a style that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a long time.

An Exceptional Impact

Consider: there are ten active actresses who have been nominated multiple times. It’s unusual for a single part to originate in a romantic comedy, especially not several, as was the case for Keaton. {Because her