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Critic’s Notebook
The star’s emotional transparency and expressive eyes helped us see the Corleones as both fascinating and repellent, just as her character did.
Oct. 12, 2025, 1:00 p.m. ET
It has often been quipped about the onscreen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers that he gave her class and she gave him sex. With his romantic comedy “Annie Hall” (1977), Woody Allen gave Diane Keaton one of the defining roles of her career while she, for better and, yes, for worse, helped establish him as a credible-enough romantic lead.
Allen had jokes and timing. Keaton did too, but she also had emotional transparency, a tremulous quality that drew you to her, and expressive eyes that watered easily but could also light up with persuasive joy. After “Annie Hall,” she also deservedly had an Oscar for best actress.
Keaton, whose death was reported on Saturday, was a star for decades, though she began to shine most brightly in the 1970s, the era that saw her in some of her greatest roles. Among these, of course, was Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” saga, in which she played Kay to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone. In the first two movies, Kay is one of the few female roles of any substance in a story filled with juicy male characters and swaggering, domineering actors. That imbalance alone makes Kay seem an impossible part, but it’s especially tricky because she has to be an intermediary between you and the Corleones’ brutal, cloistered world. You may not necessarily think of Keaton when you think of these films, but she’s crucial to them.
This is made graphically clear near the end of the first film, after Michael’s sister accuses him of murdering her husband. After he orders her taken away, a distraught Kay asks if it’s true. With bloodless cool, Michael lies, saying no and takes her in his arms. A relieved Kay goes to an adjacent room to make them drinks and sees two men kiss her husband’s hand, one addressing Michael as “Don Corleone.” As another begins closing the door separating Kay from the men, Coppola cuts to Kay silently staring at the camera with a look of stunned, horrified understanding. She now sees her husband for who he is and, as she looks at him, the door swings shut in front of her, obscuring her like a closing tomb. It’s the last shot in the film.
Keaton’s emotional openness, her readability, is critical to “The Godfather” because of what Kay and Michael mean to each other and how their relationship speaks to the shadowy whole. The film is the story of a family and a criminal syndicate, but it is also a tragedy about a marriage, its secrets and lies. Kay’s love for Michael, her innocence and sweetness, help make him an immediately sympathetic presence, while the hurt that later clouds her eyes foreshadows Michael’s betrayal of her and his dramatically shifting role from the family’s baby boy to its patriarch. From the start, Kay is a mirror for the viewers, who are also similarly seduced by Michael, as well as fascinated, repelled and helplessly hooked on him.
