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Numerous talented performers have performed in romantic comedies. Typically, should they desire to win an Oscar, they must turn for dramatic parts. Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and pulled it off with seamless ease. Her initial breakout part was in the classic The Godfather, as weighty an American masterpiece as ever produced. Yet in the same year, she reprised the part of the character Linda, the love interest of a geeky protagonist, in a movie version of the stage play Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched heavy films with funny love stories across the seventies, and the comedies that won her an Oscar for best actress, transforming the category forever.

The Oscar-Winning Role

The award was for Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton portraying Annie, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. Allen and Keaton had been in a romantic relationship prior to filming, and stayed good friends until her passing; when speaking publicly, Keaton portrayed Annie as an idealized version of herself, as seen by Allen. It might be simple, then, to believe her portrayal involves doing what came naturally. Yet her breadth in her acting, from her Godfather role and her Allen comedies and within Annie Hall itself, to dismiss her facility with funny romances as merely exuding appeal – although she remained, of course, tremendously charming.

Shifting Genres

The film famously functioned as Allen’s transition between more gag-based broad comedies and a realistic approach. As such, it has numerous jokes, imaginative scenes, and a freewheeling patchwork of a romantic memory mixed with painful truths into a ill-fated romance. Keaton, similarly, presides over a transition in Hollywood love stories, portraying neither the screwball-era speed-talker or the bombshell ditz famous from the ’50s. Rather, she mixes and matches elements from each to create something entirely new that seems current today, halting her assertiveness with nervous pauses.

Watch, for example the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer initially hit it off after a match of tennis, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a lift (despite the fact that only one of them has a car). The exchange is rapid, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton navigating her own discomfort before ending up stuck of that famous phrase, a expression that captures her nervous whimsy. The story embodies that sensibility in the following sequence, as she makes blasé small talk while operating the car carelessly through Manhattan streets. Afterward, she composes herself delivering the tune in a club venue.

Depth and Autonomy

These aren’t examples of Annie being unstable. Across the film, there’s a depth to her light zaniness – her lingering counterculture curiosity to experiment with substances, her fear of crustaceans and arachnids, her unwillingness to be shaped by the protagonist’s tries to shape her into someone more superficially serious (which for him means focused on dying). At first, Annie might seem like an odd character to receive acclaim; she plays the female lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the protagonists’ trajectory fails to result in sufficient transformation accommodate the other. However, she transforms, in manners visible and hidden. She just doesn’t become a more suitable partner for the male lead. Numerous follow-up films took the obvious elements – anxious quirks, eccentric styles – without quite emulating her final autonomy.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Maybe Keaton was wary of that trend. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she paused her lighthearted roles; her movie Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the complete 1980s period. Yet while she was gone, the film Annie Hall, the character perhaps moreso than the loosely structured movie, served as a blueprint for the category. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Keaton’s skill to embody brains and whimsy at once. This cast Keaton as like a everlasting comedy royalty while she was in fact portraying matrimonial parts (if contentedly, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or not as much, as in the film The First Wives Club) and/or mothers (see the holiday film The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than independent ladies in love. Even in her comeback with Allen, they’re a established married pair drawn nearer by humorous investigations – and she slips into that role easily, beautifully.

But Keaton did have another major rom-com hit in 2003 with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a playwright in love with a younger-dating cad (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The outcome? Her final Oscar nomination, and a whole subgenre of romantic tales where older women (usually played by movie stars, but still!) take charge of their destinies. A key element her passing feels so sudden is that Diane continued creating such films up until recently, a frequent big-screen star. Now fans are turning from assuming her availability to understanding the huge impact she was on the romantic comedy as we know it. If it’s harder to think of present-day versions of those earlier stars who emulate her path, that’s probably because it’s rare for a performer of her talent to dedicate herself to a category that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a long time.

A Unique Legacy

Ponder: there are ten active actresses who have been nominated multiple times. It’s unusual for a single part to begin in a rom-com, let alone half of them, as was the case for Keaton. {Because her