Starting with the film Annie Hall all the way to the movie Something’s Gotta Give: the actress Diane Keaton Emerged as the Archetypal Comedy Queen.

Many accomplished actresses have starred in romantic comedies. Usually, if they want to earn an Academy Award, they need to shift for weightier characters. The late Diane Keaton, who died unexpectedly, charted a different course and made it look effortless grace. Her debut significant performance was in The Godfather, as weighty an film classic as ever produced. But that same year, she reprised the part of Linda, the object of a nerdy hero’s affection, in a film adaptation of the theatrical production Play It Again, Sam. She continued to alternate serious dramas with lighthearted romances throughout the ’70s, and the comedies that earned her the Academy Award for outstanding actress, transforming the category forever.

The Academy Award Part

The award was for Annie Hall, written and directed by Woody Allen, with Keaton in the lead role, one half of the movie’s fractured love story. Allen and Keaton had been in a romantic relationship before making the film, and continued as pals throughout her life; in interviews, Keaton described Annie as a perfect image of herself, as seen by Allen. It might be simple, then, to think her acting meant being herself. However, her versatility in Keaton’s work, contrasting her dramatic part and her comedic collaborations and inside Annie Hall alone, to discount her skill with romantic comedy as merely exuding appeal – although she remained, of course, incredibly appealing.

Shifting Genres

Annie Hall notably acted as Allen’s shift between broader, joke-heavy films and a more naturalistic style. Therefore, it has lots of humor, dreamlike moments, and a freewheeling patchwork of a romantic memory alongside sharp observations into a doomed romantic relationship. In a similar vein, Diane, led an evolution in American rom-coms, playing neither the screwball-era speed-talker or the sexy scatterbrain common in the fifties. Rather, she mixes and matches elements from each to invent a novel style that feels modern even now, interrupting her own boldness with uncertain moments.

Observe, for instance the scene where Annie and Alvy Singer initially hit it off after a match of tennis, awkwardly exchanging proposals for a ride (although only one of them has a car). The banter is fast, but meanders unexpectedly, with Keaton maneuvering through her unease before ending up stuck of her whimsical line, a expression that captures her nervous whimsy. The story embodies that feeling in the subsequent moment, as she engages in casual chat while navigating wildly through Manhattan streets. Later, she finds her footing singing It Had to Be You in a club venue.

Depth and Autonomy

This is not evidence of the character’s unpredictability. Throughout the movie, there’s a dimensionality to her playful craziness – her post-hippie openness to sample narcotics, her panic over lobsters and spiders, her unwillingness to be shaped by Alvy’s attempts to shape her into someone apparently somber (in his view, that signifies death-obsessed). Initially, Annie could appear like an unusual choice to win an Oscar; she plays the female lead in a story filtered through a man’s eyes, and the protagonists’ trajectory doesn’t bend toward sufficient transformation to make it work. But Annie evolves, in ways both observable and unknowable. She merely avoids becoming a better match for her co-star. Many subsequent love stories borrowed the surface traits – anxious quirks, odd clothing – not fully copying her core self-reliance.

Enduring Impact and Mature Parts

Possibly she grew hesitant of that trend. Post her professional partnership with Allen ended, she stepped away from romantic comedies; the film Baby Boom is really her only one from the whole decade of the eighties. Yet while she was gone, Annie Hall, the character perhaps moreso than the free-form film, became a model for the style. Actress Meg Ryan, for example, is largely indebted for her comedic roles to Keaton’s skill to play smart and flibbertigibbet simultaneously. This cast Keaton as like a permanent rom-com queen even as she was actually playing married characters (be it joyfully, as in the movie Father of the Bride, or more strained, as in that ensemble comedy) and/or moms (see The Family Stone or the comedy Because I Said So) than independent ladies in love. Even in her reunion with Allen, they’re a seasoned spouses drawn nearer by humorous investigations – and she eases into the part smoothly, wonderfully.

However, Keaton also enjoyed a further love story triumph in the year 2003 with that Nancy Meyers movie, as a dramatist in love with a man who dates younger women (Jack Nicholson, naturally). The result? One more Oscar recognition, and a complete niche of love stories where senior actresses (typically acted by celebrities, but still!) reassert their romantic and/or social agency. Part of the reason her passing feels so sudden is that Keaton was still making those movies just last year, a frequent big-screen star. Today viewers must shift from taking that presence for granted to realizing what an enormous influence she was on the rom-com genre as it exists today. Should it be difficult to recall present-day versions of those earlier stars who similarly follow in Keaton’s footsteps, the reason may be it’s uncommon for an actor of Keaton’s skill to devote herself to a style that’s frequently reduced to digital fare for a while now.

A Special Contribution

Reflect: there are 10 living female actors who have been nominated multiple times. It’s unusual for a single part to start in a light love story, not to mention multiple, as was the situation with Diane. {Because her