Diane Keaton

When I first heard of the passing of Diane Keaton, already over a month ago, it hit me hard. Certainly not as hard as a family member or longtime friend, but still I felt truly sad.

I imagine I wasn't the only person to feel that way, that, in fact, it is very common for regular people to mourn the death of famous actors, or athletes or musicians, or other such people whose work they admired. Or whose life represented something beyond just respect for their accomplishments.

While I can't know for certain why other people get upset when someone like Diane Keaton passes, I can surmise why I felt sad, almost tearful, when I heard the news.

Keaton represented the type of woman that I, as a young man, was attracted to, perhaps even searched for as a life mate. 

Now, I know that sounds kind of ridiculous when one understands that what I admired about her was not really Diane Keaton, but the characters she played in the movies, especially Annie Hall.

I had been musing about this post, considering the direction and details of it, since her death, but had let the idea drop away as is evident since I have posted seven times already since her passing despite a search for Diane Keaton movies that resulted in my watching a number of her films in the two weeks or so right after her death.

Most I had never seen before, Manhattan and Interiors being the two I enjoyed the most. A few were not that good, to be honest. I still haven't had the opportunity to see Sleeper again, or Play It Again, Sam which might be an indication that I enjoyed Keaton characters that Woody Allen created for her. Perhaps it also suggests that the love that Allen felt for Keaton was transferred to the film goer in general, and myself in particular, for although they dated but never married, Keaton was a longtime defender of his less than acceptable relationship scandals while he often ran his scripts and ideas past her first, his respect for her opinions being so profound.

If I am totally honest, there may even be a bit to the idea that if Woody could successfully woo Diane, even if in the make believe world of movies, then I might find success in winning over a woman like her. In that example, Woody's well known lack of self esteem reflected my own, yet somehow he is still able to be attractive to Keaton, as it turns out, in film and real life.

What really surprised me is that I was unaware that Diane Keaton was in the Godfather movies, being one of the eight people in America to have never seen any of the those films. The fact that she was in those movies while also appearing in Love and Death and Sleeper illustrates the range of her acting ability. 

Another odd juxtaposition of roles are those she played in the aforementioned Annie Hall and Looking for Mr Goodbar both which released in 1977. I am hoping to find the latter on some streaming service some time soon, perhaps right after seeing the former again.

Over the years, as I aged along with Keaton (just to note, she was born a dozen years before me), I enjoyed her in Baby Boom, the Father of the Bride movies, the First Wives Club, The Family Stone, and Somethings Gotta Give, among others.

I also hope to see Reds again sometime in the near future although I recall losing interest in parts of the movie when I first saw it. 

So, again, why was I attracted to Keaton, or to be more realistic, her acting roles?

Since retiring, I have been watching a lot of movies, most notably older movies, older being defined as released before 1970. One that I enjoyed the most, starring my favorite black and white movie female actress, Katharine Hepburn, is Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant.

I mention Hepburn because Keaton reminds me of her. Both versatile actors, both attractive but not glamorous, perhaps best of all, both seemingly approachable, more like the girl next door as opposed to a  Hollywood starlet.

And, perhaps, most important to me, both able to play comedic roles, which I interpret as not taking themselves too seriously.

As I said in the beginning of this post, Diane Keaton represented to me the kind of woman I wanted to be around, perhaps even marry, despite my understanding that it was her roles that created that desire. 

Whether she was anything like those roles in her real life, we may find out as time passes and various people in her life open up about what she was really like. Hopefully, I won't experience too much bursting of the balloon should the reality not match my fantasy. But as someone famously said, la-di-da, la-di-da.