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Numerous talented actresses have starred in love stories with humor. Typically, should they desire to receive Oscar recognition, they must turn for dramatic parts. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, followed a reverse trajectory and executed it with seamless ease. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, as weighty an American masterpiece as ever produced. But that same year, she reprised the part of the character Linda, the love interest of a geeky protagonist, in a cinematic take of the stage play Play It Again, Sam. She persistently switched intense dramas with funny love stories across the seventies, and the lighter fare that secured her the Oscar for best actress, transforming the category forever.

The Oscar-Winning Role

The award was for the film Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton portraying Annie, part of the film’s broken romance. Allen and Keaton had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and stayed good friends throughout her life; when speaking publicly, Keaton described Annie as a dream iteration of herself, from Allen’s perspective. One could assume, then, to believe her portrayal meant being herself. Yet her breadth in Keaton’s work, from her Godfather role and her Allen comedies and within Annie Hall itself, to dismiss her facility with funny romances as just being charming – although she remained, of course, tremendously charming.

A Transition in Style

Annie Hall famously served as the director’s evolution between broader, joke-heavy films and a realistic approach. Therefore, it has lots of humor, dreamlike moments, and a freewheeling patchwork of a relationship memoir alongside sharp observations into a doomed romantic relationship. Likewise, Keaton, oversaw a change in U.S. romantic comedies, playing neither the screwball-era speed-talker or the bombshell ditz famous from the ’50s. On the contrary, she mixes and matches traits from both to create something entirely new that seems current today, cutting her confidence short with her own false-start hesitations.

See, as an example the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer initially hit it off after a match of tennis, fumbling over ping-ponging invitations for a car trip (even though only a single one owns a vehicle). The banter is fast, but zig-zags around unpredictably, with Keaton navigating her unease before winding up in a cul-de-sac of “la di da”, a phrase that encapsulates her quirky unease. The movie physicalizes that sensibility in the subsequent moment, as she makes blasé small talk while navigating wildly through New York roads. Afterward, she finds her footing delivering the tune in a nightclub.

Depth and Autonomy

These are not instances of the character’s unpredictability. Across the film, there’s a depth to her gentle eccentricity – her hippie-hangover willingness to sample narcotics, her fear of crustaceans and arachnids, her unwillingness to be shaped by Alvy’s efforts to turn her into someone more superficially serious (for him, that implies focused on dying). At first, Annie could appear like an strange pick to win an Oscar; she’s the romantic lead in a film told from a male perspective, and the protagonists’ trajectory fails to result in either changing enough to suit each other. But Annie evolves, in aspects clear and mysterious. She merely avoids becoming a more suitable partner for her co-star. Many subsequent love stories stole the superficial stuff – neurotic hang-ups, quirky fashions – failing to replicate her final autonomy.

Enduring Impact and Mature Parts

Maybe Keaton was wary of that trend. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she paused her lighthearted roles; the film Baby Boom is essentially her sole entry from the complete 1980s period. But during her absence, the film Annie Hall, the role possibly more than the free-form film, served as a blueprint for the category. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, credits much of her love story success to Diane’s talent to embody brains and whimsy at once. This rendered Keaton like a timeless love story icon despite her real roles being married characters (be it joyfully, as in that family comedy, or more strained, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or mothers (see the holiday film The Family Stone or Because I Said So) than unattached women finding romance. Even in her comeback with the director, they’re a established married pair brought closer together by humorous investigations – and she eases into the part effortlessly, gracefully.

However, Keaton also enjoyed a further love story triumph in the year 2003 with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a playwright in love with a older playboy (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The outcome? Her final Oscar nomination, and a whole subgenre of love stories where mature females (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) take charge of their destinies. One factor her passing feels so sudden is that Diane continued creating those movies as recently as last year, a frequent big-screen star. Today viewers must shift from assuming her availability to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the funny romance as it is recognized. If it’s harder to think of contemporary counterparts of those earlier stars who emulate her path, the reason may be it’s uncommon for an actor of Keaton’s skill to dedicate herself to a genre that’s often just online content for a long time.

An Exceptional Impact

Consider: there are ten active actresses who have been nominated multiple times. It’s rare for one of those roles to begin in a rom-com, let alone half of them, as was the situation with Diane. {Because her