I was among the many who loved Dianne Keaton. Everyone seemed to have a favorite version of her. The smile, the hats, the wit. I kept thinking about Looking for Mr. Goodbar. That one stayed with me most. I read the obituaries and didn’t see much mention of it, but that film truly shocked me. I was still a teenager. I remember being startled by the way she walked straight into a story that polite people pretended didn’t exist. It was also the sound of the film. Music I didn’t like, songs I would have switched off if they came on the radio. I heard them differently in that context, because I cared about what was happening on the screen, because I understood it was accurate. An early lesson in how easily senses can be rearranged. Things we resist can, for a moment, become the things that reach us.
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I too noticed the articles I read mentioned everything except Goodbar, which was indeed a shocking film — or the ending was, anyway.
I rarely cry out in shock and dismay when a public figure dies, but I did with Ms Keaton even though never thinking of myself as a fan. Wonder what that was about. Maybe because she usually played such lovable characters.