The Tamesis
Diane Keaton is less a movie star than a shape-shifter, always sliding between archetypes and rewriting them along the way. This restless, strange energy is the theme of “Searching for Ms. Keaton,” a retrospective that opens this week at Cinema at Lincoln Center and celebrates one of American cinema’s most unique beings. (Starts February 13th and runs through February 19th.)
The week-long series traces Keaton’s astonishing transformation over the course of her six-year career: her comedic bravery, tender vulnerability, and the quiet authority she grew into. Together, these 15 films (many of them screened in 35mm) present an artist in conversation with her time, questioning romance, femininity, power and aging long before such issues became fashionable. (Fashion, of course, was central to Keaton’s career, from the neurotic, waistcoat-wearing ingénue who made menswear feel like a statement, to her later-career roles in which she wore creamy, comfortable silhouettes that foreshadowed coastal grandmother fashion.)
“Her films depict the coming of age of women in America in a very coherent way, even though she plays many different types of women,” said Maddie Whittle, programmer at Lincoln Center’s film program. “She always struggled with her characters, how to express where women are at a given moment, whether that was explicitly tied to an ideology, e.g. red manor in a more implicit way, depict complex women understanding what it means to be a wife and a mother or a sister and a daughter. “
Whittle in detail Fashion The echoes between Keaton’s film characters and her real life, why what she wore on screen resonated so much with audiences, and why her performances are still ones we love to revisit decades later.
Fashion: Diane Keaton starred in more than 60 films from 1970 until her death last October, and many of her indelible performances remain in the cultural imagination. Which version of her in the foreground are you most interested in?
Maddie Whittle: I wanted to show her openness, self-deprecation, and unwavering composure. She’s not afraid to make fun of herself or be part of a joke, but she will never invite a joke at her expense. There’s a dignity to her performances when she leans into slapstick or farce, even in the most intense dramatic roles, but also a playfulness and openness to seeing where a particular role might take her – which is why her performances remain so relevant. She’s a vital element in the film, and audiences keep coming back because there’s so much more to explore in the women she plays.
