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Numerous talented actresses have performed in love stories with humor. Ordinarily, when aiming to earn an Academy Award, they have to reach for dramatic parts. Diane Keaton, who passed away recently, took an opposite path and executed it with disarmingly natural. Her initial breakout part was in The Godfather, as dramatic an American masterpiece as has ever been made. But that same year, she revisited the character of Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a movie version of the stage play Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate heavy films with lighthearted romances during the 1970s, and the comedies that won her an Oscar for outstanding actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Oscar-Winning Role

The award was for the film 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 for the rest of her life; 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 required little effort. But there’s too much range in her acting, contrasting her dramatic part and her comedic collaborations and throughout that very movie, to dismiss her facility with rom-coms as just being charming – though she was, of course, incredibly appealing.

Evolving Comedy

The film famously functioned as the director’s evolution between more gag-based broad comedies and a realistic approach. As such, it has numerous jokes, dreamlike moments, and a freewheeling patchwork of a love story recollection 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 bombshell ditz common in the fifties. On the contrary, she blends and combines traits from both to create something entirely new that seems current today, cutting her confidence short with nervous pauses.

Observe, for instance the sequence with the couple first connect after a tennis game, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a lift (despite the fact that only just one drives). The exchange is rapid, but veers erratically, with Keaton soloing around her unease before concluding with of “la di da”, a phrase that encapsulates her nervous whimsy. The story embodies that feeling in the next scene, as she makes blasé small talk while driving recklessly through Manhattan streets. Subsequently, she finds her footing delivering the tune in a nightclub.

Complexity and Freedom

These are not instances of Annie being unstable. Across the film, there’s a dimensionality to her playful craziness – her hippie-hangover willingness to try drugs, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her unwillingness to be shaped by Alvy’s efforts to shape her into someone outwardly grave (for him, that implies death-obsessed). In the beginning, the character may look like an unusual choice to win an Oscar; she plays the female lead in a story filtered through a man’s eyes, and the central couple’s arc doesn’t bend toward adequate growth to make it work. However, she transforms, in ways both observable and unknowable. She merely avoids becoming a better match for her co-star. Plenty of later rom-coms stole the superficial stuff – neurotic hang-ups, eccentric styles – without quite emulating Annie’s ultimate independence.

Lasting Influence and Later Roles

Possibly she grew hesitant of that pattern. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she stepped away from romantic comedies; her movie Baby Boom is practically her single outing from the entirety of the 1980s. But during her absence, the film Annie Hall, the persona even more than the unconventional story, emerged as a template for the genre. Star Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Keaton’s ability to play smart and flibbertigibbet simultaneously. This cast Keaton as like a everlasting comedy royalty while she was in fact portraying matrimonial parts (be it joyfully, as in that family comedy, or less so, as in 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 in her reunion with Woody Allen, they’re a seasoned spouses drawn nearer by humorous investigations – and she eases into the part easily, beautifully.

Yet Diane experienced another major rom-com hit in two thousand three with Something’s Gotta Give, as a playwright in love with a older playboy (Jack Nicholson, naturally). What happened? One more Oscar recognition, and a complete niche of love stories where mature females (often portrayed by famous faces, but still!) take charge of their destinies. Part of the reason her loss is so startling is that Keaton was still making these stories as recently as last year, a regular cinema fixture. Today viewers must shift from assuming her availability to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the rom-com genre as it is recognized. Should it be difficult to recall contemporary counterparts of Meg Ryan or Goldie Hawn who emulate her path, the reason may be it’s rare for a performer of her caliber to dedicate herself to a category that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a recent period.

A Special Contribution

Reflect: there are 10 living female actors who earned several Oscar nods. 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