♪♪ ♪♪ -Hi.

Hi.

-Diane Keaton is, of course, synonymous with New York and films of the '70s.

You know, she was the wife of Michael Corleone as Kay.

She was Annie Hall.

You know, one of the most sort of iconic of all female roles in Hollywood history.

♪♪ -I'm back.

Ha!

I'm back.

[ Laughs ] -Diane Keaton is a great actress who is constantly surprising you.

♪♪ -Look, look what's happened to us, Mike.

My God, look what's happened to our son, Michael.

-Diane Keaton comes from a particular point in time where roles are opening up, but she changes.

She's part of that change.

She's the kind of actor who helps change what's possible for her to do as she goes through her life and as she goes through her career.

-As Woody Allen once said, "She was different.

Just something about her and the way she did things was different, and that difference made them more real."

♪♪ -God bless.

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ -Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall on the 5th of January, 1946, in Los Angeles, California.

She grew up in Santa Ana in Southern California and was one of four children.

Her mother had lost her father.

He had abandoned the family in the Depression, so she very much encouraged the sort of very close-knit family unit and a good relationship with all of her four children.

-She was clearly a driven woman.

She won Mrs.

Los Angeles, a competition for homemakers.

And Diane Keaton says she attended the ceremony as a young girl, and that was her first excitement at seeing such a theatrical event.

She said that sort of stirred in her an idea of performance.

-It was very easy for Diane to envisage a path to showbiz.

She was in Orange County.

She went to Santa Ana High School, where she performed in the drama club, in school plays.

She was Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

And afterwards she went to Santa Ana College to study acting.

-This is sort of the -- the mid '60s.

And California, you know, outside of Los Angeles would have been quite dull, I think, for someone aspiring to something creative.

And she looked right across the continent and thought, "New York is kind of where it's happening."

Certainly, if you want to be a serious actress.

So she dropped out of college and she trekked all the way over to New York, really on a sort of creative impulse to kind of find herself as an actress.

And of course, despite being born in California, she's always synonymous with that city.

You know, New York is Diane Keaton more than any other actress, I think.

And she joined the Neighborhood Playhouse Theatre.

-The Playhouse taught the Meisner technique, which is as concerned with the other actor on the stage as the actor is with their own mental process.

So you're thinking your character.

But much more important is, what is the other actor doing?

So it's a very generous acting technique.

You're always giving, you're always aware, you're always thinking about the other performer.

And that's a very key part of Diane Keaton's style.

-It was at this time as part of the sort of American equity that she officially changed her name.

There was already a Diane Hall on the books, so she just took her mother's maiden name and became Diane Keaton.

-She performed in summer stock theater and then joined the original cast of "Hair" on Broadway.

-She's part of the recording of "Hair," the actual official soundtrack recording, so it was quite a big hit, and it led to her acting agent getting her an audition for a play called "Play It Again, Sam," written by and starring this new playwright called Woody Allen.

He was a comedy performer, mainly known that, but he sort of ventured into -- into plays.

-I think they hit it off because they have similar temperaments.

Diane was insecure about her looks.

She had all kinds of anxiety issues.

She was very self-effacing, and I think Allen saw a sort of kindred spirit in her, as well as the fact that she could act.

-But while all that was going on, she also got some film roles.

There was a film called "Lovers and Other Strangers," which is a sort of ensemble romantic comedy.

Such was the impression she made that Francis Coppola, who was beginning to cast a film called "The Godfather," thought, "She's right for the part of Kay."

You know, he said she was eccentric.

That's how he described her.

Um, I think that's a little unfair.

You know, I think that's a cliché, really, when it comes to Diane Keaton.

I think she just does things in a different way.

She has a naturalism about her that's not like other actors.

♪♪ -How are you, Fredo?

Fredo.

My brother Fredo, this is Kay Adams.

-Oh, hi.

-How're you doing?

-Oh.

-This is my brother, Mike.

Are you having a good time?

-Huh?

Yeah, yeah.

This is your friend, huh?

-"The Godfather" is Francis Ford Coppola's legendary gangster movie, with Marlon Brando as the patriarch Don Corleone and Al Pacino as his son Michael, who appears to have the opportunity to escape the gangster lifestyle.

Diane Keaton's part Kay is a small part.

She's Al Pacino's wife, but she's crucial in holding the film together to some degree.

She represents the possibility of salvation.

Diane Keaton plays her as someone very separate from that world, someone who is observing.

She's the outsider.

She's someone who isn't part of the Sicilian clan.

She isn't Catholic.

She's very, very distant, and she watches as her husband gradually moves into this world.

-She made an impact, partly because that character was the only corrective, the only straight person in almost the entire cast.

The rest of the cast were, of course, actually involved in criminal activities and enterprise.

So, that was a very, very interesting role for her to -- to -- to take.

-It's remarkable to think that "The Godfather" comes so early in Diane Keaton's career, because it feels like she was an established actress who was brought in as part of this astonishing ensemble.

I think that's just "The Godfather" effect.

It was so big and so important, that you suddenly think, you know, all of them were stars to begin with.

Yet they weren't.

Even Al Pacino was a relative unknown when the first film was made.

-You can see her journey very, very subtly played as she realizes that she's losing him and keeps hoping that he'll come back.

And she plays this with a -- with a beautiful sense of heartbreak and innocence and hope, which is a very, very necessary corollary to the way that the gangsters in the film are descending further into darkness.

-In one part of the film, "The Godfather," it's a study of marriage and the study of, you know, in a sort of extreme, operatic way of what, you know, forces corrupt a marriage.

You know, his work, you know, his business, his family drag him away from her, and she has to fight that.

And of course, she loses the battle.

And the wonderful final shot in the film is the door being closed on Kay.

You are not invited to the inner chamber.

He's lost to her.

The door is shut.

So it's a tragedy from Kay's point of view.

And with very minimal amounts of screen time, I think Keaton takes hold of that whole idea in part and makes it her own.

♪♪ ♪♪ -How's the baby?

-Sleeping inside me.

-Does it feel like a boy?

-Yes.

Yes, it does, Michael.

-"The Godfather" was an absolute monster success.

And so everybody who was involved in it was covered in glory.

She went on to play the same role again in "Godfather II," which was a much more interesting for her because it was a role that she could then develop.

Um, this was a role that, um, having been seen, the reality of the life that she had sort of married into and then rejected it, um, become really embittered, and it gave her a chance to really show off her acting chops.

-Kay is now no longer the innocent who hopes that her husband will come back to her.

She is a woman in the middle of a very compromised situation who is deciding to act.

And so she -- There's a key point where she turns against Michael and explains that what he thinks she's done is not true.

She's done completely the opposite.

And there's an enormous amount of tension as she takes control of her life back from him and then sort of, in effect, destroys his chance of redemption because she will no longer tolerate what is going on.

-It was an abortion, Michael.

It was a son, a son.

And I had it killed because this must all end.

I know now that it's over.

I knew it then.

There would be no way, Michael.

No way you could ever forgive me.

Not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 year-- Oh!

-And she is banished.

She's banished from the family.

She's banished from her children, and she's defeated and lost.

But I think that there's a kind of echo within that.

And that comes back in the third part, that he has lost her as well, that, you know, she was his lifeline to sanity and morality.

Uh, and what he's lost by the end of part two is any sense of, you know, his humanity, I suppose.

-You -- You play very well.

-Oh, yeah?

So do you.

Oh, God, what a -- what a dumb thing to say, right?

I mean, you said, "You play well," and then right away I have to say you play well.

Oh.

Oh, God, Annie.

Well.

Oh, well.

[ Laughs ] La-di-da, la-di-da-la-la.

-When you talk of Diane Keaton, I suppose the first thing you think of is "Annie Hall."

Annie Hall was the sort of iconic figure, um, that probably the -- the best collaboration she ever did with Woody Allen.

They were already in a relationship at this stage, and Woody Allen is basically sort of taking their relationship and slightly exaggerating it into the story of their -- their to'ing and fro'ing, their on-and-off relationship.

-Their relationship starts with this beautiful scene where they're chatting each other up, and they're trying to be very impressive and cool in New York and sophisticated.

But there's subtitles at the bottom of the screen, which are saying exactly what they're really thinking while they're talking.

-So did you do those photographs in there or what?

-Yeah, yeah, I sort of dabble around, you know.

-They're -- They're wonderful.

You know, they have a -- they have a quality.

-Well, I-I would like to take a serious photography course and... -Photography's interesting because, you know, it's a -- it's a new art form and -- and a set of aesthetic criteria have not emerged yet.

-Aesthetic criteria?

You mean whether it's a good photo or not?

-This is the film that defines her, really.

And I mean that is a really good thing, because it's a tremendous piece of work.

It's probably Woody Allen's high watermark.

-It's a film that she gestates in a way.

The character's based on her, and through her performance, she allows Woody Allen to mature as a performer and as a writer.

-As much as it is the story of Woody Allen and the character of Alvy Singer, you know, and his sort of, his great romantic travails that are debated in front of us, um, that, the heartbeat of the film, and what makes it, uh, so true is Diane Keaton.

-She's eccentric, she's kooky, she's funny, she's witty, she's Woody Allen's equal on the screen in terms of being able to sort of deliver the one-liners, and I think that's what he adored about her.

-It's a wonderful piece of acting.

It's an astonishing character that she creates.

She thought up and helped think up the look of -- of Annie Hall.

This whole idea of vintage clothing, male clothing, sort of fedora hats, and waistcoats, and scarves, um, was an idea that, you know, she wasn't -- she wasn't unfeminine.

Of course, she was Diane Keaton and very beautiful.

But it sort of chipped away at the idea of the Hollywood ingenue.

You know, the dress was kind of abandoned for something very modern and vibey.

-She became not only the Diane Keaton, she sort of raised her profile as an actress, but she also, much to her surprise, became a fashion icon.

-Diane Keaton, I think, came to represent something of the '70s woman, you know, that echoes out in the likes of sort of Julie Christie, and Jane Fonda, and Meryl Streep, her contemporary.

Even the likes of Joni Mitchell, you know, this idea of feminism and vulnerability combined.

And it was striking.

It was intellectual.

It was era-defining.

-The film was a huge hit, and Diane Keaton won the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, and the Academy Award for Best Actress.

-Do you have any kids or anything like that?

-Me?

Yeah, I got a kid.

-Really?

-He's being raised by two women at the moment.

-Oh, you know, I mean, I think that works.

They made some studies.

I read in one of the psychoanalytic quarterlies.

You don't need a male.

I mean, two mothers are absolutely fine.

-Really?

Because I always feel very few people survive one mother.

-Mm.

-Manhattan sees Woody Allen and Diane Keaton reunite.

And there's, uh, it's the story of Woody Allen dating a 17-year-old.

And with his group of friends, all thinking he's not grown up, he finally meets and falls for Diane Keaton, who is a conceited writer who's having an affair with his best friend.

-Keaton is absolutely great in this, because it's almost as if she's sort of grown in confidence in the intervening period, so she knows now how to handle herself as well as handle Allen on the screen.

-There's that beautiful sequence where they talk through the night and get to know one another and finally that lovely shot of them on the bench, you know, as dawn comes in.

So he sort of mixes this whole idea of the way real romance and relationships work with this sort of moodiness as well.

It's got a lovely sort of combination, but of course, being Woody Allen and being Diane Keaton and being, you know, the nature of the films he was making then, she will leave him, you know, she will abandon him and go back to -- to her former love.

-What's the matter?

Hey, what?

Is there something wrong?

What is it?

-I think I'm still in love with Yale.

-What?

-There's something beautiful about it, because they -- They're so long-established as a in-real-life couple, but as real -- as collaborators, that it feels like Woody Allen is coming home.

She represents both as a performer and as a character, the place that he ought to be, interestingly.

And it feels like that.

There's the moment when they finally achieve that resolution sitting, looking at the bridge, which is the perfect end to that journey.

-The film became another smash hit, another one of those kind of markers on a -- on a terrific era of very intelligent and meaningful films about American life at which Diane Keaton is at the heart.

-Please come with me.

-All right.

Wait a minute.

Let me get this straight.

You want me to come with you to New York?

-Yeah.

-What as?

-Huh?

-What as?

-What do you mean what as?

-What as?

Your girlfriend?

I want to know what as.

-It's nearly Thanksgiving.

Uh, why don't you come as a turkey?

-The most serious film she made at this period was "Reds," Warren Beatty's great epic about based on "Ten Days That Shook The World."

-This was Warren Beatty's life-long project.

This was his big moment, um, and he spent two years developing the script.

At this stage in Beatty's life, he was having a relationship with Diane Keaton, and it was very much both Beatty's method and sort of Keaton's that they made films within relationships.

It seemed to work for them both.

-She's terrific with Warren Beatty on the screen because she matches him, in this case with intelligence and wit.

She's also great with Jack Nicholson, who plays Eugene O'Neill, the great playwright.

And she manages to move from one to the other without losing trace of her own personality.

I think that this is one of the most impressive acting performances, straight acting performances of her career.

-But out of it comes astonishing performance from, um, Keaton.

Again, just so nuanced that you watch it again and you just find these details of character, um, very human.

-Diane Keaton was BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Oscar-nominated for Best Actress, and the film was a huge hit, both with the audience and with critics.

-Jack.

Good luck.

-Yeah.

You too.

Got a taxi waiting.

-[ Sirens wail ] -[ Objects clatter ] ♪♪ -Lenny, how could you send me such a telegram about Babe and Zackery?

You say somebody shot Zackery?

-Yes, they have.

-Well, good Lord.

Is he dead?

-No, but he's in the hospital.

And they shot him in the stomach.

-In his stomach?

-Yes.

-Oh.

How awful.

-I know.

-Well, do they know who did it?

Do they, Lenny?

Well, who?

-Oh.

-Who?

Who shot him?

Who?

-Babe!

-At the beginning of the film, Sissy Spacek's character known as Babe, has shot her no-good husband.

He's a senator, and she's in a crime of passion.

She has shot him.

So the two sisters, two older sisters, have come to just kind of sort this situation out.

They've sort of formed -- they've sort of circled the wagons around the family.

But, of course, within this environment, all the long resentments between the sisters have bubbled up to the surface.

-She takes this very simple role and gives it a real fullness of character, a real feel.

-Thanks.

-Thank you.

-It taste okay?

-It's perfect.

-Ah.

I really don't feel very thirsty.

-Well, I like more sugar than that.

I'm gonna add some more sugar.

-Babe!

Babe, don't make such a mess here.

Please be careful with that sharp knife.

Honestly, now all that sugar's gonna get you sick.

I mean it.

Just really.

-Keaton is the anchor here because she is -- she is the sort of the one who's at home.

She's the homemaker, but she accommodates the other two's wildness and eccentricities in a way that you can see not only a generosity of spirit, which she actually has as a person, as an actor.

Um, but in terms of the actual roles they play, they're utterly believable as sisters.

-In some ways, it's a seminal film in Keaton's career, although it wasn't her biggest hit because I think so many directors and screenwriters and Hollywood studio executives would harken back to it and say, we want to put Diane Keaton in those family films because she seems to embody, you know, not the sweetheart family nature of America, but what can go wrong in American families seem to circle around Diane Keaton.

-Well, um, actually, I have a lunch meeting at 40 minutes, so if I could just sign for whatever it is I inherited.

-Certainly.

I just need you to sign one thing.

-Mm-hmm.

Good.

So, what is it, a million dollars?

-I beg your pardon?

-[ Laughs ] Oh.

What is it?

I mean, what is it that I inherited?

-Why Elizabeth, of course.

-Ba-ba.

-What Elizabeth, of course?

-Your cousin Andrew's Elizabeth.

-"Baby Boom" was one of those films that I don't think the studio had a huge amount of faith in, although they were totally surprised when it actually became a huge hit.

I see no reason at all why it wouldn't have been a huge hit.

It's absolutely fantastic.

It's a great setup.

-So here you have Diane Keaton, you know, one of America's favorite mothers, playing the opposite.

She's a high-flying New York executive who hasn't got time for anything, least of all making, or even registering the fact she has maternal feelings for anyone.

And her cousin dies.

And in the will, she is left to look after this baby.

At first she wants to get the child adopted, but this being a big studio comedy, she starts to feel the stirrings of maternal feelings.

But we do pass through that kind of slapstick, antic comedy, normally the realm of male characters, where she has to figure out how to change nappies and go shopping for baby food.

And slowly but surely sort of come to her senses.

-Gradually, she begins to open up and fall in love with the child.

And what that starts to damage her working life.

So there's this conflict between work and home, the old conflict.

But they play it very differently.

They play her effectively, realizing how the men at work are conspiring to take her power away from her.

And her -- What she does as a response is to effectively walk away.

-What's really funny about the second half of the film is that although it seems as if she has given up her career, she restarts it through the baby by default of the baby, and she starts, um, a gourmet baby food company, which of course then is hugely successful.

And it's -- it's one of those wonderful sort of fairy tales.

It's a fantasy, which you can't help but like.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -It was a great use of Keaton in something, you know, commercial that took the idea of Diane Keaton and played it for laughs and a sweetness by the end.

Um, and it almost sort of allowed her then to kind of shake off some of the seriousness of her career and be funny.

You know, it was a very liberating film, I think, for Diane Keaton.

-Oh, Annie.

-Uh.

-Oh.

-So this is him.

-Oh, he's just -- uh, just-- -A little nervous.

It's like one of those situations you read about, you know, meeting the in-laws.

-[ Laughs ] -But you two seem great.

I'm sure I have nothing to be nervous about.

-"Father of the Bride" stars Steve Martin and Diane Keaton as a couple whose daughter comes home from traveling around Europe with her fiancé and says, "We're getting married."

They're previously unaware of the existence of this man, so they have to come to terms with suddenly meeting his family, preparing for the wedding.

And Steve Martin is going off the rails.

He can't deal with the fact that his daughter has grown up and is getting married.

-It really is kind of the Steve Martin Show, especially with the scenes with Martin Short as this ridiculous wedding planner.

They have a wonderful kind of comic rapport together.

But even if Diane Keaton doesn't get all the laughs, she gets something very important to do in the -- in the plot.

She gets to sort her husband out.

She gets to be the kind of the Yoda figure of "Father of the Bride," if you want.

You know, she is the voice of wisdom in all this.

-She delivers everything with this precise sense of timing and humor.

So while Steve Martin is raging and clowning around, the things she says and does are delivered so with such stillness and such humor, you're waiting for her to speak.

You're waiting for her to be -- to find out what she's going to do as a result of everything that she sees around her.

-Hello, George.

-Why do you look happy to see me in here, Nina?

-Happy?

No, no, no, I'm not happy, George.

You think I was happy to tell everyone that I had to come down to the city jail and bail you out for stealing hot dog buns?

-I wasn't stealing them.

-Uh.

-I was happy-- -Uh.

I'm going to have to ask you not to talk, or I'll have to call officer what's his name over there.

-Keaton's very good at kind of exasperation, a tolerance, barely held in tolerance for male antics.

You know, it goes all the way back to Woody Allen.

You know, someone's got to deal with another idiot man.

-If you want to see what makes her more than just a good actress is to watch her reactions.

It's not her acting, it's her reacting.

And that's one of her great strengths.

All great screen actors are great reactors, and in this film in particular, it is like body language.

It's the way she sort of does a little double take.

It's a sudden smile to cover a moment of disappointment.

She does all that and she does it with great subtlety and humor.

-The whole thing is this riot of chaos, and she holds it down for the viewer, but she also holds it down for the family, and she does it with just this lovely sense of timing and care.

-You never once mentioned that she had a heart condition.

-What is she going to say?

Well, yeah.

Hello, I'm Mrs.

House and I have a bad heart.

-Well, she had no problem telling me about her hysterectomy in the first five minutes.

-It's much easier to talk about a hysterectomy than it is to talk about a heart-- -Like hysterectomy.

-She liked to eat high-cholesterol desserts.

Is that what you're saying?

-So she had one too many?

-No, no, she wasn't on a diet.

We discussed diets.

-"Manhattan Murder Mystery" is probably one of my favorite Woody Allen films ever.

It is a fantastically funny movie that is actually was part of "Annie Hall."

It was part of the original "Annie Hall" script.

It was supposed to be part of that, and they dropped that.

Um, and so later on, uh, Woody Allen decided to make it into a -- into a film itself.

-Again, you're seeing Woody Allen and Diane Keaton reunited, and again, the chemistry is there between them on the screen.

They play a couple who've just sent their son off to college, and they're just looking ahead at what the future of their child-free world will be.

They go down in a lift with their neighbors, who they seem to be in fine form, and they're joking with everything seems to be wonderful.

And then at the end of the evening, they come back and they find that the wife Lillian has died.

-She thinks that the man next door, whom they've just been introduced to, has murdered his wife, and she sets about wanting to investigate it, much against Woody Allen's wishes, because he just wants to, you know, he doesn't want to know anything.

He just wants to sort of let -- get on with it.

You know, he doesn't want to interfere, but she gets a sort of bit between her teeth.

She becomes -- she turns amateur detective.

-We discover enormously complicated, beautifully put together plot.

Exactly not what you expect, but she's the engine that drives the whole thing forward.

She's the, if you like, she's right at the front of the team of sleuths.

-And it's just a delight, you know, it just has a kind of a tellingness about New York and the way relationships mature while being very funny and silly and enjoying being so.

-Put your hand together.

Put your hand together.

Now give me a boost, okay?

All right, you ready?

Wait a second.

Wait, wait.

-You gotta cut down on those rich desserts.

-Oh, wait a minute.

Just wait, wait, wait.

-Let's go.

My life is passing in front of my eyes.

The worst part of it is I'm driving a used car.

-Okay.

Now, you'd think they'd loosen this stupid thing.

-I'm scared.

Oh, my God.

It's her.

-So that's where he hid her.

-Oh, Jesus, claustrophobia and a dead body.

This is the neurotic's jackpot.

-Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, look at you.

-What?

-Oh, just look at you.

Oh, God.

Are you that old?

'Cause how old does that make me, then?

-Oh, why?

I look old?

-Well... Oh, you're a lot -- Well, you're a lot older.

-Yeah.

-But... -Well, you look really good, though, Bessie, you do.

I like your hair.

-This is a wig.

It's, uh, it's from my chemo.

-Oh.

-That era, I think, really was about Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep.

And here you have them both in a film together and a dark drama as sisters.

And the point, at the beginning of the film is that we learn that the character played by Diane Keaton has leukemia and is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

And the only person she can call upon for this is, of course, her sister.

-The most interesting aspect of this, of course, is actually it's really about two sisters who've been separated who are having to reconcile and what happens over this with -- with other sort of elements.

-Oh, my God.

I can't believe you never told me this.

-Well, if I couldn't tell people I had a carny boyfriend, I couldn't tell them my carny boyfriend drowned.

-Yeah, but you should have told me.

-We were never that close.

-We weren't?

-"Marvin's Room," well, you know, not a huge hit.

Were to get Oscar attention again, and Diane Keaton would get another Oscar nomination.

-Look at us by being together.

Us?

Unity.

I mean, if all the first wives of the world got together... -Yeah?

-...what else do we need?

-Just one amazing attorney.

-No, no.

All we need is us.

Three women who aren't afraid to fight.

To stand up for our dignity.

Huh?

For our self-esteem.

And then we'll let him have it.

-Okay.

Okay.

See this?

-What?

-Look.

-Ooh!

-Right here, okay?

-Okay.

-"The First Wives Club" stars Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn in a story of four friends, one of whom has committed suicide.

And the other three gather together at her funeral.

Uh, having not seen each other for years and realizing that their husbands have all done the same thing, which is effectively run off with younger women and left them high and dry.

They get a letter from the dead friend who's saying that she thinks they deserve more.

And so they set out.

They form The First Wives Club to repatriate all the earnings that they feel that their husbands have taken away from them.

-It's the combination of these three -- these three actors that makes it so brilliant.

They -- They rise above the material.

And again, Keaton is the least showy of the three.

-The key to it, I think, and it's a good script, is about actually the fact they've realized the stages of their life, you know, in these marriages have been going on for a long time.

What they have actually lost are friends and female friendship.

-This is a film that could be seen as spiteful and malicious, but it's not because the actors play with such warmth.

They are outraged.

They are done wrong.

But there's humor and charm, and there's no bitterness and malice in the way they go about it.

-♪ You don't own me ♪ ♪ I'm not just one of your many toys ♪ ♪ You don't own me ♪ ♪ Don't say I can't go with other boys ♪ ♪ Da-da-da-da-da-da ♪ ♪ And don't tell me what to do ♪ ♪ And don't tell me what to say ♪ Whoo!

[ Laughter ] -"The First Wives Club" was an enormous hit at the box office and lives on today.

There still are First Wives Clubs set up all around America who meet to watch the film together.

-I don't know what happened.

We were fooling around and then he just said he felt funny, and then he just collapsed.

-Harry, what is it?

-I'm okay.

I'm fine.

-Does your chest hurt?

-It's like an elephant's sitting on me.

-Call 911.

Tell him to send an ambulance.

Marin, now!

-"Something's Gotta Give" stars Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson, with Jack Nicholson as this music industry mogul, who has a penchant for young ladies and who goes off into the Hamptons with his latest fling to find that her mother is a hugely respected writer and is in the house.

-But before anything can happen, he suffers this heart attack.

Life catches up with him, and this begins the real truth of the film.

This was sort of, this is the twist that throws the film because he has to recuperate in the area, and the only person left to look after him is Diane Keaton.

-They worked together in "Reds."

They've known each other for years.

They really understand each other's moves, and to watch them play at this love affair is just an absolute delight.

-What we're watching is two pros having fun, playing sort of variations on their public persona.

-Why'd you come here, Harry?

-Turns out the heart attack was easy to get over.

You...were something else.

-And it just has a knowingness and a warmth about it that is lit up by this concept of Nicholson and Keaton getting together.

-You remember Amy, right?

-Oh, Amy.

Yes.

Merry Christmas.

-Merry Christmas.

-You remember me, right?

-I do.

-The mother.

-That's right.

Hi, Mom.

-[ Smooches ] -And this is Sybil.

Mom, this is Meredith.

-Hello.

You have a lovely home.

-All the better to entertain you, my dear.

-"The Family Stone" is ostensibly a Sarah Jessica Parker film about an uptight, conservative New Yorker who goes to her boyfriend's bohemian family for Christmas, absolutely hating the idea of it and knowing she won't get on with that family.

It's a film that could be played that way, and it could be a straightforward film.

But at the heart of this family, there's Diane Keaton as Sybil, who is a breast cancer survivor who's just discovered that her disease is no longer in remission and that this will be her last Christmas.

-Yeah, it's one of those almost French farces where everyone seems to swap partners and really sort of work out what they should be doing in their relationships and shouldn't be doing.

-Diane Keaton doesn't have the -- the -- the most lines.

She doesn't have the biggest laughs.

What she has is this absolute, still center of the film where she allows everyone else to be funny, but she is in herself, the cause and the -- and the supporter of all the humor.

She's very generous, but at the same time, you can't take your eyes off her.

-Again, you know, it's just lovely to see Keaton sort of ease into these roles.

-Hi, there.

What are you doing?

-Dinner.

-Oh, okay, so... -"Hampstead" is probably one of the most unusual films Diane Keaton made.

She comes across on a walk on Hampstead Heath, a man played by Brendan Gleeson who's a homeless man who's built a little shelter for himself.

And they fall into conversation, and it discovers that he -- that he is trying to be evicted by developers, and she helps him take his case to court, in the process of which they have a romance.

Now, on the surface of it, the romance seems highly unlikely, um, but both of them, Brendan Gleeson is wonderful and Keaton make it work.

-You might think of me, you know... who I am and what I've become.

-Why didn't you tell me it was your birthday?

-[ Sighs ] -You're moping.

-Oh.

-There is, you know, something true and tender in the relationship, you know.

While it's in some sense is a one-dimensional piece, both Gleeson and especially Diane Keaton are too good to let it flounder and bring something out of it and bring something kind of sweet.

And it's very watchable.

♪♪ As an actress, she has changed the way the female lead has worked in films.

She's become an enormously important figure in terms of feminism and representing female characters.

So you could say Diane Keaton was a revolutionary.

-[ Sighs ] That's it?

♪♪ -There's always that glint in her eye that something unpredictable may happen.

And I think it is that level of unpredictability that marks her out as a very special actress.

-She's one of a kind.

There's almost no one you could compare directly with Diane Keaton.

-I'm just really -- I'm not the person to get involved with.

I'm trouble.

-There's always a sense of generosity about her performances on screen.

She works well with other actors.

You're not looking at an actress who wants to grab all the attention.

-Ooh, ooh, ooh.

-Oh!

♪♪ -She can do almost anything in her own style.

She's been herself, absolutely herself all through her life.

And that's made it possible for everyone else to be themselves.

But, you know, there is only one Diane Keaton.

♪♪ -Well... bye.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪