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Many great performers have appeared in romantic comedies. Ordinarily, should they desire to win an Oscar, they must turn for dramatic parts. Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and executed it with effortless grace. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, as weighty an cinematic masterpiece as has ever been made. Yet in the same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the love interest of a geeky protagonist, in a movie version of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched heavy films with funny love stories throughout the ’70s, and the lighter fare that won her an Oscar for best actress, transforming the category forever.

The Award-Winning Performance

The award was for Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton as the title character, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. Allen and Keaton dated previously before production, and continued as pals throughout her life; in interviews, Keaton portrayed Annie as a perfect image of herself, through Allen’s eyes. It would be easy, then, to assume Keaton’s performance involves doing what came naturally. Yet her breadth in her acting, contrasting her dramatic part and her Allen comedies and within Annie Hall itself, to underestimate her talent with funny romances as simply turning on the charm – though she was, of course, tremendously charming.

A Transition in Style

The film famously functioned as Allen’s transition between slapstick-oriented movies and a realistic approach. Therefore, it has numerous jokes, imaginative scenes, and a freewheeling patchwork of a love story recollection mixed with painful truths into a fated love affair. Likewise, Keaton, led an evolution in American rom-coms, playing neither the fast-talking screwball type or the bombshell ditz common in the fifties. On the contrary, she blends and combines aspects of both to create something entirely new that seems current today, halting her assertiveness with uncertain moments.

Observe, for instance the sequence with the couple initially hit it off after a tennis game, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (even though only just one drives). The banter is fast, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton soloing around her nervousness before ending up stuck of “la di da”, a phrase that encapsulates her quirky unease. The film manifests that tone in the following sequence, as she has indifferent conversation while navigating wildly through New York roads. Afterward, she finds her footing delivering the tune in a cabaret.

Dimensionality and Independence

These aren’t examples of Annie being unstable. Across the film, there’s a dimensionality to her light zaniness – her post-hippie openness to sample narcotics, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her resistance to control by the protagonist’s tries to mold her into someone apparently somber (for him, that implies preoccupied with mortality). At first, Annie could appear like an odd character to earn an award; she’s the romantic lead in a film told from a male perspective, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t bend toward either changing enough to suit each other. But Annie evolves, in manners visible and hidden. She merely avoids becoming a more compatible mate for the male lead. Plenty of later rom-coms borrowed the surface traits – neurotic hang-ups, quirky fashions – without quite emulating her final autonomy.

Enduring Impact and Mature Parts

Maybe Keaton was wary of that trend. Following her collaboration with Allen concluded, she paused her lighthearted roles; Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the film Annie Hall, the character perhaps moreso than the free-form film, became a model for the genre. Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Keaton’s ability to embody brains and whimsy at once. This made Keaton seem like a permanent rom-com queen while she was in fact portraying matrimonial parts (if contentedly, as in that family comedy, or less so, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or parental figures (see that Christmas movie or the comedy Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even in her reunion with Woody Allen, they’re a long-married couple drawn nearer by funny detective work – and she eases into the part effortlessly, gracefully.

However, Keaton also enjoyed a further love story triumph in the year 2003 with Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a younger-dating cad (actor Jack Nicholson, naturally). What happened? Her last Academy Award nod, and a whole subgenre of love stories where mature females (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) reclaim their love lives. One factor her loss is so startling is that Diane continued creating such films as recently as last year, a constant multiplex presence. Today viewers must shift from expecting her roles to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the romantic comedy as it is recognized. If it’s harder to think of modern equivalents of those earlier stars who emulate her path, the reason may be it’s seldom for a star of her caliber to devote herself to a category that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a long time.

An Exceptional Impact

Consider: there are ten active actresses who received at least four best actress nominations. It’s rare for one of those roles to originate in a romantic comedy, let alone half of them, as was the example of Keaton. {Because her