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Plenty of talented actresses have starred in romantic comedies. Usually, should they desire to receive Oscar recognition, they have to reach for dramatic parts. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and executed it with seamless ease. Her first major film role was in the classic The Godfather, as dramatic an cinematic masterpiece as has ever been made. Yet in the same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate intense dramas with lighthearted romances during the 1970s, and the lighter fare that won her an Oscar for best actress, transforming the category forever.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for the film Annie Hall, co-written and directed by Allen, with Keaton as the title character, part of the film’s broken romance. The director and star were once romantically involved prior to filming, and continued as pals throughout her life; when speaking publicly, Keaton described Annie as an idealized version of herself, through Allen’s eyes. It might be simple, then, to assume Keaton’s performance meant being herself. However, her versatility in her acting, from her Godfather role and her comedic collaborations and throughout that very movie, to underestimate her talent with romantic comedy as merely exuding appeal – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Evolving Comedy

Annie Hall famously served as Allen’s shift between more gag-based broad comedies and a authentic manner. Consequently, it has plenty of gags, imaginative scenes, and a freewheeling patchwork of a relationship memoir alongside sharp observations into a fated love affair. In a similar vein, Diane, led an evolution in Hollywood love stories, portraying neither the rapid-fire comic lead or the glamorous airhead famous from the ’50s. On the contrary, she fuses and merges elements from each to forge a fresh approach that seems current today, halting her assertiveness with her own false-start hesitations.

Watch, for example the moment when Annie and Alvy first connect after a tennis game, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a lift (even though only one of them has a car). The banter is fast, but veers erratically, with Keaton navigating her nervousness before winding up in a cul-de-sac of that famous phrase, a phrase that encapsulates her quirky unease. The movie physicalizes that sensibility in the subsequent moment, as she engages in casual chat while operating the car carelessly through city avenues. Afterward, she centers herself delivering the tune in a cabaret.

Depth and Autonomy

These aren’t examples of Annie acting erratic. Throughout the movie, there’s a dimensionality to her playful craziness – her hippie-hangover willingness to try drugs, her fear of crustaceans and arachnids, her unwillingness to be shaped by Alvy’s attempts to shape her into someone apparently somber (which for him means death-obsessed). In the beginning, Annie might seem like an unusual choice to win an Oscar; she’s the romantic lead in a film told from a male perspective, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t bend toward adequate growth to make it work. However, she transforms, in aspects clear and mysterious. She merely avoids becoming a more compatible mate for Alvy. Many subsequent love stories borrowed the surface traits – neurotic hang-ups, odd clothing – without quite emulating her core self-reliance.

Ongoing Legacy and Senior Characters

Possibly she grew hesitant of that pattern. After her working relationship with Allen concluded, she paused her lighthearted roles; her movie Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the entirety of the 1980s. Yet while she was gone, the film Annie Hall, the role possibly more than the loosely structured movie, emerged as a template for the genre. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Keaton’s ability to portray intelligence and flightiness together. This cast Keaton as like a everlasting comedy royalty while she was in fact portraying married characters (if contentedly, as in that family comedy, or more strained, as in the film The First Wives Club) and/or mothers (see The Family Stone or that mother-daughter story) than single gals falling in love. Even during her return with Allen, they’re a established married pair brought closer together by comic amateur sleuthing – and she eases into the part smoothly, wonderfully.

But Keaton did have an additional romantic comedy success in two thousand three with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a dramatist in love with a younger-dating cad (actor Jack Nicholson, naturally). What happened? Her last Academy Award nod, and a entire category of romantic tales where mature females (usually played by movie stars, but still!) take charge of their destinies. Part of the reason her death seems like such a shock is that Keaton was still making these stories up until recently, a constant multiplex presence. Now audiences will be pivoting from expecting her roles to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the rom-com genre as it exists today. Should it be difficult to recall contemporary counterparts of Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn who walk in her shoes, that’s probably because it’s rare for a performer of her talent to commit herself to a style that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a while now.

A Special Contribution

Ponder: there are a dozen performing women who received at least four best actress nominations. It’s unusual for a single part to begin in a rom-com, not to mention multiple, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her