Diane Keaton (1946-2025)

Perhaps the question I get most as a cinephile is "what made you love the movies?"   The answer varies depending on the situation and the person who asked it.  Every true movie-lover knows the breakthrough film, the one that made them realize this was no longer something casual, but a lifelong obsession, something that can only be captured in a darkened room, popcorn in your lap, marveling at the majesty and richness of the story in front of you.

But perhaps a better question is "what keeps you in love with the movies?"  What makes a flight-of-fancy as a child, the kind of thing that children usually give up alongside pretending to be pirates and princesses, and keeps you inspired, sustained, nurtured for decades to come.  There are many answers to this, but if you ask me to pinpoint with a movie, one particular title & scene is always going to come up.  Near the end of Reds, Diane Keaton is walking along a train platform, trying to find out if Warren Beatty has lived or died.  She sees men being celebrated upon their return, and the audience is meant to be hopeful, and then we see a stretcher holding a clearly dead body, and you can feel your heart sink.  Finally, Keaton's gaze looks up from the covered corpse with dread, and she sees Warren Beatty, disheveled and tired, but still very much alive.  Their complicated relationship, and nearly three hours of cinema in front of it, is etched onto their movie star faces.  They don't run to each other, but instead walk slowly, and then embrace, with Beatty whispering in Keaton's ear "don't leave...please don't leave me."  Whether or not these characters will ultimately live or die before the credits fall, they have achieved a reunion-they will be together whatever comes next.  And for every audience member, most teary-eyed, these actors have shown them something true, honest, and real.  From the ephemeral, we have witnessed love, if only for an instant.

I have seen countless Diane Keaton movies, and fallen in love with many of them.  The manic screams of Something's Gotta Give, the frustrated declaration of an abortion in The Godfather, Part II, the la-de-da perfection of her singing "Seems Like Old Times" in Annie Hall, but for me, when I think of Diane Keaton, I always think of her on that train station.  A singular actor, a singular talent, a singular human being, Reds is not the Keaton persona that most of the public associate with her, the neurotic, suited-up feminist trailblazer that Annie Hall would perfect.  But with Reds, you see best what made her so breathtaking in every role she would inhabit-that vulnerability and raw commitment to making each of her characters feel full of truth, timeless, even immortal.  Life is not fair, and death comes for us all, even the immortal, but as long as there are projectors in darkened theaters, and people willing to be moved by the floating lights on a projector, there will always be a Diane Keaton, wandering on a train platform, inspiring us all.