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Many great performers have starred in love stories with humor. Typically, should they desire to earn an Academy Award, they have to reach for more serious roles. Diane Keaton, whose recent passing occurred, followed a reverse trajectory and executed it with disarmingly natural. Her debut significant performance was in the classic The Godfather, about as serious an cinematic masterpiece as has ever been made. But that same year, she returned to the role of Linda, the focus of an awkward lead’s admiration, in a film adaptation of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate intense dramas with lighthearted romances across the seventies, and the lighter fare that won her an Oscar for leading actress, changing the genre permanently.

The Oscar-Winning Role

That Oscar was for the film Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton as the title character, part of the film’s broken romance. The director and star had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and continued as pals throughout her life; in interviews, Keaton had characterized Annie as an idealized version of herself, as seen by Allen. It might be simple, then, to believe her portrayal meant being herself. Yet her breadth in her performances, both between her Godfather performance and her Allen comedies and inside Annie Hall alone, to discount her skill with romantic comedy as merely exuding appeal – though she was, of course, tremendously charming.

Shifting Genres

The film famously functioned as Allen’s transition between broader, joke-heavy films and a more naturalistic style. As such, it has numerous jokes, imaginative scenes, and a freewheeling patchwork of a relationship memoir alongside sharp observations into a fated love affair. Keaton, similarly, oversaw a change in Hollywood love stories, embodying neither the fast-talking screwball type or the sexy scatterbrain famous from the ’50s. On the contrary, she mixes and matches traits from both to forge a fresh approach that feels modern even now, halting her assertiveness with uncertain moments.

See, as an example the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer first connect after a game on the courts, stumbling through reciprocal offers for a ride (although only one of them has a car). The banter is fast, but meanders unexpectedly, with Keaton soloing around her nervousness before concluding with of that famous phrase, a words that embody her quirky unease. The story embodies that feeling in the subsequent moment, as she makes blasé small talk while driving recklessly through city avenues. Afterward, she finds her footing performing the song in a club venue.

Complexity and Freedom

This is not evidence of Annie acting erratic. Across the film, there’s a dimensionality to her light zaniness – her lingering counterculture curiosity to experiment with substances, her anxiety about sea creatures and insects, her resistance to control by Alvy’s attempts to mold her into someone apparently somber (for him, that implies focused on dying). At first, Annie might seem 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 central couple’s arc doesn’t lead to adequate growth to suit each other. But Annie evolves, in ways both observable and unknowable. She just doesn’t become a more compatible mate for her co-star. Many subsequent love stories stole the superficial stuff – nervous habits, odd clothing – without quite emulating her core self-reliance.

Ongoing Legacy and Senior Characters

Maybe Keaton was wary of that pattern. After her working relationship with Allen ended, she took a break from rom-coms; her movie Baby Boom is really her only one from the complete 1980s period. Yet while she was gone, the film Annie Hall, the character perhaps moreso than the free-form film, emerged as a template for the category. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Diane’s talent to play smart and flibbertigibbet simultaneously. This rendered Keaton like a everlasting comedy royalty despite her real roles being more wives (if contentedly, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or less so, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or mothers (see The Family Stone or that mother-daughter story) than unattached women finding romance. Even in her reunion with Woody Allen, they’re a seasoned spouses brought closer together by funny detective work – and she eases into the part effortlessly, gracefully.

Yet Diane experienced an additional romantic comedy success in 2003 with Something’s Gotta Give, as a playwright in love with a older playboy (the star Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? Her final Oscar nomination, and a entire category of love stories where senior actresses (usually played by movie stars, but still!) reclaim their love lives. A key element her death seems like such a shock is that Diane continued creating these stories just last year, a regular cinema fixture. Now fans are turning from taking that presence for granted to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the funny romance as it is recognized. If it’s harder to think of present-day versions of such actresses who emulate her path, that’s likely since it’s uncommon for an actor of her caliber to commit herself to a category that’s mostly been streaming fodder for a while now.

A Special Contribution

Consider: there are ten active actresses who have been nominated multiple times. It’s unusual for a single part to begin in a rom-com, not to mention multiple, as was the situation with Diane. {Because her