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Numerous talented female actors have starred in romantic comedies. Usually, when aiming to receive Oscar recognition, they need to shift for weightier characters. Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and executed it with effortless grace. Her initial breakout part was in the classic The Godfather, about as serious an film classic as ever created. But that same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the love interest of a geeky protagonist, in a film adaptation of Broadway’s Play It Again, Sam. She regularly juggled heavy films with romantic comedies during the 1970s, and the lighter fare that secured her the Oscar for outstanding actress, transforming the category forever.

The Award-Winning Performance

The Oscar statuette was for Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton portraying Annie, a component of the couple’s failed relationship. Allen and Keaton were once romantically involved prior to filming, and stayed good friends until her passing; in interviews, Keaton described Annie as an idealized version of herself, through Allen’s eyes. It would be easy, then, to believe her portrayal involves doing what came naturally. However, her versatility in Keaton’s work, both between her Godfather performance and her funny films with Allen and within Annie Hall itself, to discount her skill with funny romances as simply turning on the charm – even if she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

A Transition in Style

The film famously functioned as the director’s evolution between more gag-based broad comedies and a more naturalistic style. Therefore, it has lots of humor, imaginative scenes, and a loose collage of a love story recollection mixed with painful truths into a doomed romantic relationship. Likewise, Keaton, led an evolution in American rom-coms, playing neither the rapid-fire comic lead or the glamorous airhead popularized in the 1950s. Instead, she mixes and matches aspects of both to forge a fresh approach that feels modern even now, interrupting her own boldness with her own false-start hesitations.

Watch, for example the moment when Annie and Alvy initially hit it off after a tennis game, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a lift (despite the fact that only a single one owns a vehicle). The banter is fast, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton soloing around her own discomfort before concluding with of her whimsical line, a words that embody her nervous whimsy. The story embodies that sensibility in the next scene, as she engages in casual chat while operating the car carelessly through city avenues. Later, she finds her footing singing It Had to Be You in a cabaret.

Depth and Autonomy

These are not instances of Annie acting erratic. Throughout the movie, there’s a depth to her gentle eccentricity – her hippie-hangover willingness to sample narcotics, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her refusal to be manipulated by the protagonist’s tries to turn her into someone outwardly grave (in his view, that signifies focused on dying). In the beginning, the character may look like an odd character to win an Oscar; she’s the romantic lead in a film told from a male perspective, and the protagonists’ trajectory doesn’t bend toward either changing enough to make it work. But Annie evolves, in manners visible and hidden. She simply fails to turn into a better match for her co-star. Many subsequent love stories took the obvious elements – nervous habits, odd clothing – failing to replicate Annie’s ultimate independence.

Enduring Impact and Mature Parts

Maybe Keaton was wary of that pattern. Following her collaboration with Allen concluded, she paused her lighthearted roles; Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the complete 1980s period. Yet while she was gone, Annie Hall, the role possibly more than the free-form film, became a model for the style. Star Meg Ryan, for example, owes most of her rom-com career to Keaton’s skill to portray intelligence and flightiness together. This cast Keaton as like a permanent rom-com queen even as she was actually playing more wives (if contentedly, as in Father of the Bride, or more strained, as in the film The First Wives Club) and/or mothers (see The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than independent ladies in love. Even during her return with Allen, they’re a long-married couple brought closer together by comic amateur sleuthing – and she fits the character effortlessly, gracefully.

However, Keaton also enjoyed an additional romantic comedy success in 2003 with the film Something’s Gotta Give, as a writer in love with a man who dates younger women (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? One more Oscar recognition, and a entire category of romances where older women (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) reclaim their love lives. A key element her death seems like such a shock is that Keaton was still making those movies as recently as last year, a frequent big-screen star. Now fans are turning from expecting her roles to grasping the significant effect she was on the romantic comedy as it exists today. Should it be difficult to recall present-day versions of such actresses who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, that’s likely since it’s seldom for a star of her talent to devote herself to a category that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a recent period.

A Special Contribution

Ponder: there are a dozen performing women who have been nominated multiple times. It’s uncommon for any performance to originate in a romantic comedy, not to mention multiple, as was the situation with Diane. {Because her