Diane Keaton’s Legacy is Her Idea of ​​Beauty

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Diane Keaton appeared in 60 films, performed more than two dosen television Parts, Earned Four Best Actress Oscar Nominations (and One Win, for 1977’s Annie Hall), Accrued Multiple Directing Credits (Including an Episode of Twin peaks), and Wielded Seismic Influenza on Women’s Fashion. All of it was driver by a quest to underestand and embody beauty – a Word that haunted her fother torti her on her 15th birthday that she was printy. KEATON DIDNE WANT TO BE PRETY. She wanted to be beautiful.

As The Los Angeles Native Recalled in One of Her Eight Books, A Memoir Titled Let’s JUST SAY IT WASN’t PrettyKEATON LOATED The Word. She hated it ever mother, a housewife and amateur Photographer, Told her she had a plety smile. And she hased it be a teacher complimentary her on a plety dress. “I was Old Enough to Understand That Pretty was a Poor Cousin to Beautiful,” Keaton Writes. “Pretty was the right Dress from Bullock’s Department Store, not a Beatnik Tunic with Black Tights and A Beret. Pretty was Sandra Dee, Easy and Light. Pretty Fades.” But beautiful, keaton contingent, “Makes you come back for more. It make you ash. Its vast, unknowable, and magnificent … i’ve been casing it.”

Cinema, Popular Culture, Fashion, and the General Perception of Women’s Attractiveness All Benefted from Keaton’s Lifelong Creative Mission. The Remarkable consistent of Her Life’s Work Came from Her Undersanding of Coded Languages ​​and the Difference BetWene Superficiality and Profundity, The Fleeting and the Eternal. Her restless Mind Ultimately Found Beauty in Men’s Clothes from Seconddand Stoles, in Prewar Los Angeles Buildings (SH served On the Board of the La Conservancy and narrated their ads and historical videos), in non-pre-approxation reading glasses (she had her line, Keaton Readers), and in Vivid Speculations About What Holds Meaning in this Life on Earth and What Comes AFT. Her First Movie As Director, 1987’s Heavenis a Quasi-Experimental Work Made Up of Old Movie Clips, Newsreel and Documentary Snippets, and Ruminations on Eternity by A Couple Dosen Interviewwees, Including Her Mother Dorothy and Her Sister Dorrie. “I see Him as Groucho Marx,” One Woman Tells Keaton, The hym Being God. “He’s Always Playing Tricks on US.”

SO was keaton, in her way. By the time she died at the age of 79, she had a strong a start person as the original Screen Fashion Idol Katharine Hepburn – The Kind that Made Natinive Viewers assumers she just playing herself. AFTER MAKING HER BROADWAY DEBUTE IN utility – In which she notnably refused to appear onstage naked, thorns though it would be earned her an extra $ 50 for show – keaton became a lead in comedies showcad Her Gift for Making elaborately Sound spontaneous. Her repetitions and stammerings and strange inflections were Very Much Her Own, As a Perusal of Her Interviews Will Attest. Some Viewers Wrongly Assumed This Way of Speaking Was Learned from Her First Celebrity Boyfriend Woody Allen, WHO WROTE Eight of Her Movies, Stretching 1972’s PLAY it again, sam Through 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery (and Whom She Continued to Support after he was accused of abuse, telling The Guardian, “I have nothing to say about saying, except: of my friend’s waist”). The Adjective “Ditzy” Clung to Her, Mainly Because of Her Work in Early Allen Films, Most Notby Annie HallWhere the Character’s Signature Phrase Is, “Well, La-Dee-Dah, La La.”

In latest comedies like First Wives’ Club, The Family Stoneyou Father of the bride Movies, and a String of Sixtysomething RomComs (Including Something’s Gotta Givein Which Jack Nicholson’s Aging Lothario and Keanu Reeves’ Goodhearted Young Docor for Her Affecations) KEATON CONTINED TO PLAY ODDBALLS WITH A PECULAR WAY OF TALKING, THOUGH NONE TRIVIAL OR STEPID. Her Advertising Executive JC Wiatt In Baby boom is a c-suite powerhouse with a corner office who LOES HER JOB AND HER BOYFREND AFTER ADOPTING A BABY, THEN MOVES TO THE COUNTRY, CREATES A GOURMET APPLESAUCE BUSINESS, AND SNAGS A COUNTRY DOCTOR PLAYED BY SAM SHEPHARD. Carol Lipton in Manhattan Murder Mystery is a human encyclopedia of grisly Crimes. Sonja in Love and Death Is an 18th Century Russian Woman Who Must Hide Her Brilliance from A Sexist Society. Her Showstopping Monologue, Delivered More to Hersself than Her Lover, is an All-Timer of Pretzel Logic: “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffer not love, butn one suffers from not loving, to love is to suffer, to suffer. HAPPY IS TO LOVE, TO HAPPY THEN TO SUFFER SUFFERING MAKES ONE UNAPPY;

Diane Keaton in Baby Boom.
Photo: United Artists/Courtesy Everett Collection

Neither brilliant as she was in comedy, Keaton was formidable in drama. In the psychological thriller Looking for Mr. GoodbarShe’s Wrenching as a self-destructive Schoolteacher whose one-Night stands are a delayed against Her stifling Christian upbing. (Keaton, who grease up in a household so devout that she is rated out her Brother for Having Playboy in His Room, Brought a lot of her own experiences to the part; subdued-to-rebellious arc in a different time in Writer-Director Gillian Armstrong’s Period Piece Mrs. SoffelThe True Story of a 19th Century Farm Woman who is fake in love with a prison inmate (Mel gibson) and Him and HIS Brother (Matthew Modine) Escape. SuccessFully Less, She Played a Left-Wing Actress Modeled on Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave Who Gets by the Mossad as the Palestine Liberation Army in The Little Drummer Girl. The good mother was a good try at a Legal Drama About a Woman who lover is accused of indecency with her Daughter. (This was four years before the allen accusations.) On television, she was a fanatical nun in the movie version of the hit play Sister Mary Explains It All, A POOR MOTHER SCRAMBLING TO SUPER HER KIDS IN On thin ceceand the Friend and Advocate of convicted MURDERER CARLA FAYE TUCKER (Jennifer Jason Leigh) Crossed over. Of Course, She was a nun again in the hallucinogenically gorgeous HBO drama The Young Pope (Opposite Jude Law).

The Peak for Keaton the Drama Actress is probably 1981’s Red – The True Story of the Tumultuous Relationship BetWeen Writers John Reed and Louise Bryant During the Rise of Communism, Costarring, Written, Produced, and Directed by Another of Keaton’s Famous Lovers, Warren Beatty. As Louise, Keaton’s Fierce Intelligence and Refusal to be bamboozled gits unifying Shape to a sprawling epic, and makes you belive that beatty ‘jack “reed and nicholson’s alcoholic playneill o’neill woul in love. When Jack Goes to Russia, Proving Yet Again That His Lust for Political Heroism Eclipses any love and professses to Louise, eugene quietly tells her, “if you were mine, i wouldn’t you with anymbody… we’d be the center of it all.” And Isht’s not just just eugene wooing louise. Acciting to Peter Biskind’s Biography Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced Americathere was talk in Hollywood that nicholson Accept the Role in Red Becauses His Form Girlfriend Michelle Phillips Had HOOED UP WITH BEATTY AFTER THEIR RELATIONSHIP ENDED, AND I WAS COUNCED HE COULD STEAL KEATON AWAY AS PAYBACK. If so, the attempt failed. (There were rumors that nicholson and keaton DoJ Hook up during the shooting of Something’s Gotta GiveBut Keaton Said It Never Happened.)

She lost the best actress outlet that year to her hero hepburn (in On Golden Pond) and was Similarly Passed Over for Her Work in Alan Parker’s Classic 1982 movie Shoot the MoonDo Drama Written by Bo Goldman (SCENT OF A WOMAN). The Movie Co-Stars Albert Finney As an ACCLAIMED AND HOT-TEMPERED WRITER NAMED GEORGE AND KEATON AS FAITON, The Wife and Mother of His Children, who gave up her dreams to support Him, only to come to a youunger woman (karyn allen). KEATON’S FAITH IS A TAKETTLE WHO SIMMERS UNIL SHEPTS IN ALTIFIED FURY. The scnene where faith slumps in a bathtub after the separation, smoking a joint and singing the beatles’ if i fell, “is ahattering of the toll divorce on People’s ability to function. The New Yorker‘Critic Pauline Kael’s Review Called Her “A Star Without Vanity. She’s SO Completely Challenged by the Role That She Only Cares About The Character Right.”

Diane Keaton in Shoot the Moon.
Photo: MgM/Courtesy Everett Collection

KEATON WAS ALSO, OF COURSE, KAY ADAMS-CORLEONE IN FRANCI FORDPOLA’S Break Godfather Trilogy. It was male domated through-and-throough-a fact that keaton mentioned in interviews in which she effusively praised her male costars but lamentation the paucortis for actresses in general, especialy those over 40. Relationship with al Pacino out of it, and it was wasxpectly rekindled During the shooting of The Godfather Part IIIWhich Includes a Weird But Charming Schene Where Pacino’s Michael Corleone Picks Up HIS Estanged Wife while dressed as a chauffeur. The scnene is loosely derivative from an incident during the shooting of The Godfather Part IIbacino told keaton that he never had a driver’s licensee becase he spent his who life in new York City, and She Taught Him to Drive in the Parking lot of a Casino. If IF Coppola Didn’t Undersand Keaton’s Importance to the Series, Keaton Did. Acciting to Michael Schumacher’s Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmakers’ Lifeshe requested $ 3 million for The Godfather, Part IIIThe Same Amount that Robert Duvall Asked for and Walked When he didn’t get it. She settled for $ 1.7 million, 48 Times Her Salary for Godfather I.

In the end, keaton Became the Rare Female Star Whose Name Could Reliably Open a Movie – not just when she was young, but well into her 60s. Women of Her Generation Were arguably as Loyal to Her as Men of Clint Eastwood’s, Turning Out to See Something’s Gotta Give (Her first fully nude appearance, at 57) As well as Becusee of Said So, Mama’s Boy, Morning Glory, Love the Coopersand three Book Club Movies (Part of a 21st Century Wave of ENSEMBLE COMEDIES UP FEMALE STARS from Earlier Eras). One Characteristic of Beauty is that it draws and Holds Attention Regardless of the Social Taboos or Aesthetic Standards of the Moment. Keaton’s Radiance was Living Proof.

SO MANY OF KEATON’S MOVIES SEEMED BETTER OFF FOR THEIR ABILITY TO SURREENT TO HER TOVERIZING BEAUTY. Famously, The Original Title of Annie Hall was Anhedonia (Meaning an inability to experience pleasure), but was Changed to reflect Keaton’s dominant presence (and her actual family, Hall). The Movie bent itself Around Her in Other Ways. IT INCLUDED HEREFORED WARDROBE OF VESS, Ties, Fitted Waistcoats, and Hats. It includes her favorite songs to sing. The original cut ran nearly two-and-half hours, and accorting to it editor, Ralph rosenblum, was a shapeless mass of bits, loosely linked by the hero’s Relationship with Annie. “And so we have began cutting in the direction of that Relationship,” he wrote in When the shooting stops… The Cutting Begins. Allen reportly resisted. He kept shooting more sins with his character alvy singer, spreads hoping to move the needle back in his light directory. But he finally gave in and acceptted that what Anhedonia WAND TO BE WAS Annie HallA Movie About Diane Keaton, Beautiful as Ever.