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Many great female actors have appeared in romantic comedies. Typically, if they want to receive Oscar recognition, they must turn for dramatic parts. The late Diane Keaton, who passed away recently, charted a different course and made it look seamless ease. Her initial breakout part was in The Godfather, as dramatic an American masterpiece as ever produced. Yet in the same year, she returned to the role of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched heavy films with lighthearted romances throughout the ’70s, and the lighter fare that earned her the Academy Award for best actress, altering the genre for good.

The Oscar-Winning Role

That Oscar was for the film Annie Hall, helmed and co-scripted by Woody Allen, with Keaton as the title character, part of the film’s broken romance. The director and star had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and remained close friends for the rest of her life; during conversations, Keaton described Annie as an idealized version of herself, from Allen’s perspective. It would be easy, then, to think her acting required little effort. But there’s too much range in her performances, from her Godfather role and her funny films with Allen and inside Annie Hall alone, to dismiss her facility with romantic comedy as simply turning on the charm – although she remained, of course, incredibly appealing.

Shifting Genres

Annie Hall notably acted as Allen’s transition between slapstick-oriented movies and a authentic manner. As such, it has numerous jokes, fantasy sequences, and a improvised tapestry of a relationship memoir mixed with painful truths into a ill-fated romance. Likewise, Keaton, oversaw a change in Hollywood love stories, portraying neither the screwball-era speed-talker or the glamorous airhead popularized in the 1950s. Instead, she blends and combines traits from both to forge a fresh approach that feels modern even now, halting her assertiveness with uncertain moments.

See, as an example the moment when Annie and Alvy first connect after a tennis game, fumbling over ping-ponging invitations for a ride (even though only just one drives). The dialogue is quick, but veers erratically, with Keaton soloing around her unease before concluding with of that famous phrase, a phrase that encapsulates her nervous whimsy. The movie physicalizes that feeling in the following sequence, as she makes blasé small talk while driving recklessly through Manhattan streets. Subsequently, she finds her footing performing the song in a cabaret.

Dimensionality and Independence

These are not instances of the character’s unpredictability. Throughout the movie, there’s a dimensionality to her gentle eccentricity – her lingering counterculture curiosity to try drugs, her anxiety about sea creatures and insects, her resistance to control by Alvy’s attempts to mold her into someone outwardly grave (which for him means death-obsessed). In the beginning, Annie might seem like an strange pick to receive acclaim; she’s the romantic lead in a story filtered through a man’s eyes, and the main pair’s journey doesn’t lead to sufficient transformation to suit each other. But Annie evolves, in ways both observable and unknowable. She simply fails to turn into a more compatible mate for her co-star. Plenty of later rom-coms took the obvious elements – nervous habits, quirky fashions – failing to replicate her final autonomy.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Possibly she grew hesitant of that trend. After her working relationship with Allen concluded, she paused her lighthearted roles; the film Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the whole decade of the eighties. However, in her hiatus, the film Annie Hall, the character perhaps moreso than the free-form film, emerged as a template for the category. Star Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Diane’s talent to portray intelligence and flightiness together. This made Keaton seem like a permanent rom-com queen even as she was actually playing married characters (be it joyfully, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or not as much, as in the film The First Wives Club) and/or parental figures (see the holiday film The Family Stone or that mother-daughter story) than single gals falling in love. Even in her comeback with Allen, they’re a established married pair united more deeply by funny detective work – and she eases into the part easily, beautifully.

Yet Diane experienced an additional romantic comedy success in the year 2003 with the film Something’s Gotta Give, as a dramatist in love with a younger-dating cad (Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? Her final Oscar nomination, and a entire category of romantic tales where mature females (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) reassert their romantic and/or social agency. Part of the reason her death seems like such a shock is that Diane continued creating those movies just last year, a constant multiplex presence. Now fans are turning from taking that presence for granted to grasping the significant effect she was on the funny romance as we know it. Is it tough to imagine present-day versions of those earlier stars who walk in her shoes, that’s probably because it’s uncommon for an actor of her talent to devote herself to a genre that’s often just online content for a while now.

An Exceptional Impact

Ponder: there are 10 living female actors 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 example of Keaton. {Because her