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Many accomplished performers have starred in love stories with humor. Typically, should they desire to receive Oscar recognition, they need to shift for more serious roles. Diane Keaton, whose recent passing occurred, followed a reverse trajectory and made it look effortless grace. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, as weighty an cinematic masterpiece as ever created. Yet in the same year, she returned to the role of Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a film adaptation of the stage play Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate serious dramas with romantic comedies throughout the ’70s, and the lighter fare that won her an Oscar for leading actress, altering the genre for good.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for the film Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton in the lead role, one half of the movie’s fractured love story. Woody and Diane had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and stayed good friends until her passing; in interviews, Keaton had characterized Annie as a dream iteration of herself, as seen by Allen. One could assume, then, to assume Keaton’s performance meant being herself. But there’s too much range in her acting, from her Godfather role and her comedic collaborations and within Annie Hall itself, to discount her skill with rom-coms as simply turning on the charm – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Evolving Comedy

Annie Hall notably acted as Allen’s transition between more gag-based broad comedies and a authentic manner. As such, it has lots of humor, imaginative scenes, and a freewheeling patchwork of a romantic memory in between some stinging insights into a ill-fated romance. Likewise, Keaton, oversaw a change in U.S. romantic comedies, playing neither the rapid-fire comic lead or the bombshell ditz common in the fifties. Rather, she mixes and matches aspects of both to invent a novel style that still reads as oddly contemporary, interrupting her own boldness with nervous pauses.

See, as an example the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer initially bond after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a car trip (although only a single one owns a vehicle). The dialogue is quick, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton navigating her own discomfort before winding up in a cul-de-sac of “la di da”, a words that embody her quirky unease. The story embodies that sensibility in the subsequent moment, as she makes blasé small talk while operating the car carelessly through New York roads. Later, she composes herself performing the song in a cabaret.

Complexity and Freedom

This is not evidence of the character’s unpredictability. Throughout the movie, there’s a complexity to her playful craziness – her hippie-hangover willingness to experiment with substances, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her unwillingness to be shaped by the protagonist’s tries to shape her into someone outwardly grave (which for him means focused on dying). At first, Annie could appear like an odd character to win an Oscar; she plays the female lead in a movie seen from a man’s point of view, and the protagonists’ trajectory doesn’t lead to sufficient transformation to suit each other. Yet Annie does change, in manners visible and hidden. She simply fails to turn into a more compatible mate for the male lead. Numerous follow-up films took the obvious elements – anxious quirks, quirky fashions – failing to replicate her core self-reliance.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Possibly she grew hesitant of that tendency. After her working relationship with Allen concluded, she stepped away from romantic comedies; Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the character Annie, the character perhaps moreso than the loosely structured movie, served as a blueprint for the style. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Keaton’s ability to portray intelligence and flightiness together. This made Keaton seem like a everlasting comedy royalty despite her real roles being married characters (be it joyfully, as in that family comedy, or more strained, as in the film The First Wives Club) and/or moms (see that Christmas movie or the comedy Because I Said So) than single gals falling in love. Even during her return with the director, they’re a long-married couple drawn nearer by funny detective work – and she fits the character effortlessly, gracefully.

But Keaton did have another major rom-com hit in the year 2003 with Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a older playboy (actor Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? Her final Oscar nomination, and a entire category of romantic tales where older women (often portrayed by famous faces, but still!) reclaim their love lives. Part of the reason her passing feels so sudden is that Diane continued creating such films as recently as last year, a frequent big-screen star. Today viewers must shift from expecting her roles to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the funny romance as it is recognized. Should it be difficult to recall modern equivalents of such actresses who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, that’s probably because it’s rare for a performer of her caliber to dedicate herself to a style that’s often just online content for a long time.

A Unique Legacy

Ponder: there are ten active actresses who earned several Oscar nods. It’s unusual for a single part to begin in a rom-com, especially not several, as was the case for Keaton. {Because her