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Many great actresses have performed in love stories with humor. Usually, should they desire to receive Oscar recognition, they must turn for weightier characters. Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and made it look seamless ease. Her first major film role was in The Godfather, as dramatic an film classic as ever created. However, concurrently, she returned to the role of Linda, the love interest of a geeky protagonist, in a film adaptation of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate intense dramas with funny love stories during the 1970s, and it was the latter that won her an Oscar for outstanding actress, altering the genre for good.

The Award-Winning Performance

The award was for the film Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton in the lead role, part of the film’s broken romance. Woody and Diane dated previously before production, and remained close friends throughout her life; when speaking publicly, Keaton described Annie as an idealized version of herself, from Allen’s perspective. It would be easy, then, to believe her portrayal involves doing what came naturally. Yet her breadth in Keaton’s work, contrasting her dramatic part and her Allen comedies and throughout that very movie, to discount her skill with funny romances as merely exuding appeal – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Shifting Genres

The film famously functioned as Allen’s transition between broader, joke-heavy films and a realistic approach. Consequently, it has lots of humor, dreamlike moments, and a loose collage of a love story recollection alongside sharp observations into a ill-fated romance. In a similar vein, Diane, led an evolution in Hollywood love stories, embodying neither the rapid-fire comic lead or the sexy scatterbrain famous from the ’50s. Instead, she mixes and matches aspects of both to invent a novel style that feels modern even now, cutting her confidence short with nervous pauses.

Observe, for instance the moment when Annie and Alvy first connect after a game on the courts, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (even though only just one drives). The dialogue is quick, but meanders unexpectedly, with Keaton soloing around her unease before concluding with of her whimsical line, a words that embody her anxious charm. The film manifests that tone in the next scene, as she makes blasé small talk while navigating wildly through Manhattan streets. Later, she composes herself singing It Had to Be You in a club venue.

Dimensionality and Independence

This is not evidence of Annie being unstable. Throughout the movie, there’s a depth to her light zaniness – her post-hippie openness to experiment with substances, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her resistance to control by Alvy’s efforts to mold her into someone more superficially serious (which for him means death-obsessed). In the beginning, Annie could appear like an odd character to earn an award; she’s the romantic lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the protagonists’ trajectory doesn’t bend toward adequate growth to make it work. However, she transforms, in ways both observable and unknowable. She simply fails to turn into a more compatible mate for her co-star. Numerous follow-up films took the obvious elements – nervous habits, odd clothing – without quite emulating her core self-reliance.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Possibly she grew hesitant of that pattern. Post her professional partnership with Allen ended, she took a break from rom-coms; her movie Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the character Annie, the role possibly more than the unconventional story, emerged as a template for the category. Star Meg Ryan, for example, credits much of her love story success to Keaton’s ability to play smart and flibbertigibbet simultaneously. This rendered Keaton like a permanent rom-com queen while she was in fact portraying more wives (if contentedly, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or less so, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or mothers (see The Family Stone or the comedy Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even in her comeback with Woody Allen, they’re a established married pair drawn nearer by humorous investigations – and she fits the character effortlessly, gracefully.

Yet Diane experienced another major rom-com hit in 2003 with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a dramatist in love with a older playboy (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). What happened? One more Oscar recognition, and a entire category of romances where mature females (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) take charge of their destinies. Part of the reason her loss is so startling is that she kept producing these stories as recently as last year, a constant multiplex presence. Today viewers must shift from assuming her availability to understanding the huge impact she was on the rom-com genre as we know it. If it’s harder to think of present-day versions of Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn who emulate her path, that’s likely since it’s seldom for a star of her talent to dedicate herself to a category that’s often just online content for a while now.

A Special Contribution

Consider: there are a dozen performing women who earned several Oscar nods. It’s rare for one of those roles to start in a light love story, not to mention multiple, as was the case for Keaton. {Because her