Kevin Roegele
Do you mind if I don't?
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This was written by Mr Right on the Tim Burton Collective forums. http://www.timburtoncollective.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1810
Just please no-one say, "I'm sure it's very psychological but it's just not the Batman of the comics."
"Despite what so many have said to the contrary, I've believed for quite a while now that BR is one of the best character examination pieces, in any medium, of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Its biggest mistake as far as disconnecting with many in its initial audience is also one of its biggest virtues upon multiple viewings: a strong, multi-layered screenplay that Burton reconstructed from a dialogue-driven piece on the page to one driven by visual depth on the screen.
The complaint that Wayne gives way to Penguin and Catwoman in the early part of the movie misses an interesting point when truly considered: beyond the fact that the character setups of these two is what allows the film to draw so many parallels to Wayne/Batman and examine his own motivations, it also must be noted that the character with the most screen time in the early going is neither Penguin or Catwoman but actually one Max Shreck, who plays a very important role himself as the film's true villain. He's not only a power-hungry business elite that is planning on draining the city, vampire-like, on levels both literal and metaphorical, but he also represents the vileness of Gotham's societal structure as a whole -- i.e the very monster that created the three main beastly, horrific outcasts of the film's narrative. Shreck both manipulates the Penguin and kills Selina Kyle, leading to her rebirth as the mentally fractured Catwoman/Kyle combo, while also being representative Gotham's true evil which is ignored by both Batman and the rest of the city's inept infrastructure, preying upon it like a phantom evil from above (it's also of noted importance that the Penguin is forced below the masses while the true power and evil of Shreck lives above those same masses, with Bruce Wayne tellingly a mixture of both these characters between his two personas which create the whole of who he is).
The masses that shun, idolize and finally vilify characters like Batman and Penguin are unconcerned and clueless about the true devil that is draining the life out of Gotham, as the film implicitly shows throughout its narrative. Shreck uses the Penguin as a puppet to advance his own goals, allowing him the brief glory and the all-too quick fall, thereby risking little to nothing in pushing his scheme forward as the force behind the curtain.
The film's opening is the perfect set up for not only its horrific tone but also its main driving theme of masks and the truths hidden beneath them. The shot of the Cobblepots taking a their newborn for a walk with the contrast of another such couple overtly doing the same is a great demonstration of what the film is about when the payoff is the revelation of their true goals (once on the bridge and away from the view of others): to dump the unwanted, uncouth and monstrous child that is not bearable to the facade needed for their high-society lifestyle. Within this same opening sequence the film also presents its animal motif, complete with appearances by bats, a cat, and the penguins that discover the discarded child in the basket. Already, as well, we have the Penguin established as some sort of false savior figure: born on Christmas and sent away Moses-style to his destiny.
The Penguin's story also runs parallel to what we know of Wayne's own background at this early point, with the parental obsession just as deep but flipped and corrupted by hatred rather than love. It also transposes their outlooks: Wayne the orphan who is stuck perpetually in some childish fantasy wherein he plays dress-up, craving the same freakishness on some level that Oswald truly despises but was born with. Wayne, in other words, wants what the Penguin is and the Penguin wants what Wayne has (power, respect and the ability on the surface when considering aesthetic, if not psychology, to fit into society). The narrative line starting with the Penguin's false search for his parents at the Hall of Records on through to the cemetery scene (where he leaves two roses on his parents' grave, just as Wayne did for his parents at the site of their death in the first film) underlines how close these two are to each other, as well as the seeds of suggestion as to Wayne's own jealousy on some level of this new freakish figure when looking into his background and tracing his current actions (Alfred's lines during the cave scene as to Bruce's obsessing and territoriality are particularly leading and telling when considering this issue within the whole of the film). The confrontation at the end of the film where the Penguin accuses Batman of being jealous of his innate freakishness is a very important bit of character work as far as Bruce Wayne and his motivations, and is played up from Penguin's side by his notion within the film of Batman as nothing but a phony compared to his own freakish existence.
When first we come upon Selina Kyle, she is very much the introvert lacking any way to release her inner rage over the sexism of men and her own hatred of herself in being so weak around them. This is played up many times over, from the way Shreck and his business partners treat her to her rescue by Batman that is later paralleled in her first appearance as Catwoman whereupon she saves but shows disgust for the woman that is mirroring her earlier position of weakness. Shreck's murder of the original Selina is ultimately what gives her power (Shreck is shown here, and with the Penguin, as the center of power/dominion within the film's structure, as can be seen by the fact that neither truly has any power until Shreck manipulates or bestows it mistakenly within the film's initial setup of these characters and their place), and like the Penguin's origin Catwoman's is just as horror-tinged.
Whereas Oswald could be seen as representing the horribly treated outcast of the film as taken from classic horror -- complete with scenes of the townspeople mocking and ostracizing him once again from their society (while the true evil of Shreck is given a pass by all) -- Catwoman/Selina can be taken as the monstrous creation side of the horror equation, with Shreck being her Frankenstein-like creator, whom she despises and ultimately destroys (it should also be pointed out that this parallels Wayne/Batman's own arc to great extent within the first film in regards to Jack Napier, emphasising yet another similarity between Batman and one of his antagonists as far as motivation and actions). Batman, for anybody familiar with Tim Burton's overall work, could be seen as the film's author himself from the standpoint of playing the Vincent role: the little boy that pretends to be a horrific creature of the night in his fantasies (in this case, the fantasy is made real); and many have noted the Expressionistic idea that everything on the screen connects back to Wayne's own psyche, including the main antagonists most especially, suggesting even more fully the idea of this world being an extension of Batman's own turmoil on multiple fronts being driven through an optic narrative.
Selina's recreation as Catwoman is a great example of Burton's visual brilliance when it comes to narrative, theme and characterization, showing almost entirely without speech the fracture psychologically that her death has caused, as well as the hatred she has always contained for who she was previous to her encounter with Shreck -- the destruction of symbols pertaining to the gentle and weak person Selina was demonstrates this, as does the choice of a costume for the now extroverted side of her persona that suggests dominatrix. She finds power through sexualization, in a costume that is also a brilliant bit of character examination -- only be creating the separate entity of Catwoman can Selina find any control over her mind, which is shown by her attempts to reconstruct herself mentally through the creation of the costume physically, but this only works for a time, later becoming less and less tenable as more of Selina comes out of the ever fraying costume she has created. Through this, she becomes ever more unstable as the narrative progresses and the split in her mind becomes more confused due to the visual cue of the costume's destruction. The distinct stitching is also a great visual homage to Frankenstein's monster, giving us that character's own sewn together-look as well as providing another emblem of the fractured state mentally and physically which this same visual underlines in connection to the character's patchwork existence; she's the confused abomination created by another. Very Frankenstein. Very horror movie.
The scene of Catwoman's true genesis again demonstrates the film's animal motif, showing Selina's rescue by cats much as Oswald was taken in by the penguins, as well as providing her the power that Batman derives from his own beastly image.
The first appearance of Bruce Wayne is also a great bit of character work done entirely visually. Brooding in isolation until, literally and figuratively, his face and world are lit up by the call of the city allowing for the depression and rage that is boiling within to be released through his bat-guised persona -- the base nature of the character summed up in a single scene devoid totally of dialogue, showing just how brilliant Burton can be as a visual storyteller. Again, the question of the truth behind the mask is inherent here -- begging the question of whether Wayne is only truly himself when ironically hiding his face behind a mask that allows his hidden urges to be freed publicly -- as well as the freedom instilled and power bestowed by the image of the bat, connecting back to the animal motif of the film that drives and allows these characters to act out the inner turmoil that in a circular manner defines them and the split in all their psyches.
Recrudescing to the overall narrative and theme, every portion we see throughout leads back to the main issue of outer facade and hidden motivations beneath the outer pretense. We get this with Shreck's power plant scheme (planning to suck the city's energy dry, another unsubtle suggestion of his vampiric nature), the Penguin's search for his parents (when he's really a long-time child-killer/molester that is searching out birth certificates of Gotham's elite), the Penguin's run for mayor (Shreck pulling the strings, with the Penguin posing as Gotham's savior against the violence he's actually causing) and on down the line throughout the movie's running, from opening the opening scene to the culmination that comes for this main theme and the film's four main characters in its closing moments. Waters wrote and Burton brilliantly adapted a very intricately designed script that is a piece of narrative and thematic brilliance as far as keeping a coherent line through each piece connecting back through the plotting to the characters' psyches and motives, and being wholly Batman in all such things whether it be general theme or analysis of the title character/said theme.
The climax of the film, as previously mentioned, is a work of thematic and narrative beauty, with all four of the main characters seeing either payoff to what's come before in regards subject(s) examined and/or arc closure of some kind. The Penguin's cessation being marked by utter failure, with his pets returning him in death to the very spot they first found his bassinet and gave him birth as the monstrous Penguin; Shreck being overloaded physically by the very power he so covets, seeing his end at the hands of his misbegotten creation; Catwoman/Selina rejecting Bruce's overtures, instead giving into her need for revenge, visually and mentally seeing a convergence and near-total conflict between the two sides of her psyche, in the end destroying her maker (and cleverly recalling James Whale's Bride visually with what I'd assert is an homage through her suddenly electrified-looking hairdo).
And then there's Batman/Wayne, who has two climaxes to his narrative arc in this film featuring all three of his antagonists. First there's the confrontation with the Penguin, where what was initially only hinted at is made explicit -- his jealousy towards this malignant, pitiful creature that doesn't have to wear a mask to define his inner turmoil; unlike Wayne, a physical freak whose psychosis is brought about by that freakishness instead of having his broken psychology create a separate outer symbolism that is driven by mental pain. The Penguin's taunt lies at the heart of the narrative line that ties Batman to him in the film, and reveals a disturbance within Bruce Wayne that points yet again more towards personal vendetta than any type of heroism. Very subversive, and ironically most fail to understand the deeper meaning of the dialogue exchange to the overall analysis of Batman's character in the film. It's subtle by virtue of not being overstated, and one has to pay attention to find this running issue within the film, but it runs deep and strikes just as deep a chord for those who pay attention to the conflict between the two characters. It's one of the great psychological statements about the title character in any medium.
While the Penguin longs to live above amongst normal society, Wayne shuns all he has and wants to exist outside that normal society. The Penguin is forced into his underground hideout and truly hates it, but Bruce has constructed his parallel lair and on some level prefers it to the mansion above (the same type of mansion that the Penguin was born in but thrown out of in disgrace). They're both orphans acting out from their loss, never truly developing into adults as can be seen through the childishness of their nightly pursuits -- and the gadgets therein -- no matter how vengeful or disturbing. The inversion of difference comes from the split in the parental loss -- Wayne having his ripped away from him, while Oswald was thrown away by his parents -- but the similarities in that same parental loss make the two very much the flip side of the same coin, both being recreated through the childhood event as something monstrous, vengeful and lost.
The confrontational climax between Selina/Catwoman and Bruce/Batman runs coherently from the Penguin issue/parallel of Wayne's psyche into another, possibly more adult area of concern. Selina losses her mask and it completes the break from control over her two sides, but Bruce willfully pulls away his mask to try and reach out to her -- the idea seems to be that an adult relationship, albeit with a person as disturbed and screwed up as him if not moreso, could this time (unlike in B89, where the opposite is true) hold precedence over the depression and sickness that has owned him from childhood. At the very least he's willing to allow Bruce Wayne as the dominant side of his psyche for possibly the first time in either movie (and, yes, I understand fully the fact that Bruce's pain is what drives every action of the separate Batman persona), as well as providing the visual and psychological statement of, at least that moment, Batman as the mask (as Penguin throughout the narrative already strongly suggested) rather than vice versa. This also connects back to my earlier comment as to Burton's own connection to his Batman making itself known within Returns -- the idea of the depressed little boy who finds power through fantasy only to, in this case I'd surmise, on some level grow up. A powerful statement about the character and very interesting to contemplate.
Shreck's total disbelief at Wayne being Batman is not only funny but telling -- how could that empty suit of a man be Batman? -- suggesting again the power of the bat motif/symbol to Wayne's pursuits. And the dialogue between Bruce/Batman and Selina/Catwoman is perfect in defining the two characters, in the most emotionally naked scene for the Batman character in any film version to date:
BATMAN
Don't you see, we're the same... split
down the middle... please...
Batman rips off his mask, looks straight at her.
CATWOMAN
Bruce, I could live with you in
your castle forever. Just like in
a fairy tale.
CATWOMAN
I just couldn't live with myself!
So don't pretend this is a happy
ending.
In the end her rejection and apparent death creates an appropriate denouement, fitting in the inability of the character to move beyond his fractured place with (or without?) Gotham's societal placement. As to whether he meant for a relationship with Selina to actually mean the end of Batman or the beginning of some sort of kinky partnership (if the Penguin is the childish side of Wayne's Batman persona, Selina is the S&M fetishist side of it) is unknowable, but the final scene of Wayne mentally broken and alone -- brooding once again as he was when we again found him at the start of the film -- without his mask even as the signal shines above is an appropriately frayed and subversive close to a film about pained people with broken psyches, and it also underscores the idea of Bruce forever remaining in one place emotionally. The ultimate comic book loner is here what the comics so often stray from: alone.
Even the final shot is totally appropriate, with Wayne now being the one left unaccompanied in the limo as the woman who shunned him for her costumed persona stands ready and waiting under it (also suggesting textually most explicitly that Selina/Catwoman's death and talk of 9 lives was literal, seeing as how she so quickly reappears whole both physically, and by the looks of her costume, mentally after having previously been shot multiple times; that this all takes place after finally vanquishing Shreck is also an interesting thematic and character element to the revived Catwoman visual in the final frames). The mirror and reverse of B89's final shot, leaving the audience this time with Wayne already having been unmasked on multiple levels within a film that is wholly about that very subject. Perfect."
Just please no-one say, "I'm sure it's very psychological but it's just not the Batman of the comics."
"Despite what so many have said to the contrary, I've believed for quite a while now that BR is one of the best character examination pieces, in any medium, of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Its biggest mistake as far as disconnecting with many in its initial audience is also one of its biggest virtues upon multiple viewings: a strong, multi-layered screenplay that Burton reconstructed from a dialogue-driven piece on the page to one driven by visual depth on the screen.
The complaint that Wayne gives way to Penguin and Catwoman in the early part of the movie misses an interesting point when truly considered: beyond the fact that the character setups of these two is what allows the film to draw so many parallels to Wayne/Batman and examine his own motivations, it also must be noted that the character with the most screen time in the early going is neither Penguin or Catwoman but actually one Max Shreck, who plays a very important role himself as the film's true villain. He's not only a power-hungry business elite that is planning on draining the city, vampire-like, on levels both literal and metaphorical, but he also represents the vileness of Gotham's societal structure as a whole -- i.e the very monster that created the three main beastly, horrific outcasts of the film's narrative. Shreck both manipulates the Penguin and kills Selina Kyle, leading to her rebirth as the mentally fractured Catwoman/Kyle combo, while also being representative Gotham's true evil which is ignored by both Batman and the rest of the city's inept infrastructure, preying upon it like a phantom evil from above (it's also of noted importance that the Penguin is forced below the masses while the true power and evil of Shreck lives above those same masses, with Bruce Wayne tellingly a mixture of both these characters between his two personas which create the whole of who he is).
The masses that shun, idolize and finally vilify characters like Batman and Penguin are unconcerned and clueless about the true devil that is draining the life out of Gotham, as the film implicitly shows throughout its narrative. Shreck uses the Penguin as a puppet to advance his own goals, allowing him the brief glory and the all-too quick fall, thereby risking little to nothing in pushing his scheme forward as the force behind the curtain.
The film's opening is the perfect set up for not only its horrific tone but also its main driving theme of masks and the truths hidden beneath them. The shot of the Cobblepots taking a their newborn for a walk with the contrast of another such couple overtly doing the same is a great demonstration of what the film is about when the payoff is the revelation of their true goals (once on the bridge and away from the view of others): to dump the unwanted, uncouth and monstrous child that is not bearable to the facade needed for their high-society lifestyle. Within this same opening sequence the film also presents its animal motif, complete with appearances by bats, a cat, and the penguins that discover the discarded child in the basket. Already, as well, we have the Penguin established as some sort of false savior figure: born on Christmas and sent away Moses-style to his destiny.
The Penguin's story also runs parallel to what we know of Wayne's own background at this early point, with the parental obsession just as deep but flipped and corrupted by hatred rather than love. It also transposes their outlooks: Wayne the orphan who is stuck perpetually in some childish fantasy wherein he plays dress-up, craving the same freakishness on some level that Oswald truly despises but was born with. Wayne, in other words, wants what the Penguin is and the Penguin wants what Wayne has (power, respect and the ability on the surface when considering aesthetic, if not psychology, to fit into society). The narrative line starting with the Penguin's false search for his parents at the Hall of Records on through to the cemetery scene (where he leaves two roses on his parents' grave, just as Wayne did for his parents at the site of their death in the first film) underlines how close these two are to each other, as well as the seeds of suggestion as to Wayne's own jealousy on some level of this new freakish figure when looking into his background and tracing his current actions (Alfred's lines during the cave scene as to Bruce's obsessing and territoriality are particularly leading and telling when considering this issue within the whole of the film). The confrontation at the end of the film where the Penguin accuses Batman of being jealous of his innate freakishness is a very important bit of character work as far as Bruce Wayne and his motivations, and is played up from Penguin's side by his notion within the film of Batman as nothing but a phony compared to his own freakish existence.
When first we come upon Selina Kyle, she is very much the introvert lacking any way to release her inner rage over the sexism of men and her own hatred of herself in being so weak around them. This is played up many times over, from the way Shreck and his business partners treat her to her rescue by Batman that is later paralleled in her first appearance as Catwoman whereupon she saves but shows disgust for the woman that is mirroring her earlier position of weakness. Shreck's murder of the original Selina is ultimately what gives her power (Shreck is shown here, and with the Penguin, as the center of power/dominion within the film's structure, as can be seen by the fact that neither truly has any power until Shreck manipulates or bestows it mistakenly within the film's initial setup of these characters and their place), and like the Penguin's origin Catwoman's is just as horror-tinged.
Whereas Oswald could be seen as representing the horribly treated outcast of the film as taken from classic horror -- complete with scenes of the townspeople mocking and ostracizing him once again from their society (while the true evil of Shreck is given a pass by all) -- Catwoman/Selina can be taken as the monstrous creation side of the horror equation, with Shreck being her Frankenstein-like creator, whom she despises and ultimately destroys (it should also be pointed out that this parallels Wayne/Batman's own arc to great extent within the first film in regards to Jack Napier, emphasising yet another similarity between Batman and one of his antagonists as far as motivation and actions). Batman, for anybody familiar with Tim Burton's overall work, could be seen as the film's author himself from the standpoint of playing the Vincent role: the little boy that pretends to be a horrific creature of the night in his fantasies (in this case, the fantasy is made real); and many have noted the Expressionistic idea that everything on the screen connects back to Wayne's own psyche, including the main antagonists most especially, suggesting even more fully the idea of this world being an extension of Batman's own turmoil on multiple fronts being driven through an optic narrative.
Selina's recreation as Catwoman is a great example of Burton's visual brilliance when it comes to narrative, theme and characterization, showing almost entirely without speech the fracture psychologically that her death has caused, as well as the hatred she has always contained for who she was previous to her encounter with Shreck -- the destruction of symbols pertaining to the gentle and weak person Selina was demonstrates this, as does the choice of a costume for the now extroverted side of her persona that suggests dominatrix. She finds power through sexualization, in a costume that is also a brilliant bit of character examination -- only be creating the separate entity of Catwoman can Selina find any control over her mind, which is shown by her attempts to reconstruct herself mentally through the creation of the costume physically, but this only works for a time, later becoming less and less tenable as more of Selina comes out of the ever fraying costume she has created. Through this, she becomes ever more unstable as the narrative progresses and the split in her mind becomes more confused due to the visual cue of the costume's destruction. The distinct stitching is also a great visual homage to Frankenstein's monster, giving us that character's own sewn together-look as well as providing another emblem of the fractured state mentally and physically which this same visual underlines in connection to the character's patchwork existence; she's the confused abomination created by another. Very Frankenstein. Very horror movie.
The scene of Catwoman's true genesis again demonstrates the film's animal motif, showing Selina's rescue by cats much as Oswald was taken in by the penguins, as well as providing her the power that Batman derives from his own beastly image.
The first appearance of Bruce Wayne is also a great bit of character work done entirely visually. Brooding in isolation until, literally and figuratively, his face and world are lit up by the call of the city allowing for the depression and rage that is boiling within to be released through his bat-guised persona -- the base nature of the character summed up in a single scene devoid totally of dialogue, showing just how brilliant Burton can be as a visual storyteller. Again, the question of the truth behind the mask is inherent here -- begging the question of whether Wayne is only truly himself when ironically hiding his face behind a mask that allows his hidden urges to be freed publicly -- as well as the freedom instilled and power bestowed by the image of the bat, connecting back to the animal motif of the film that drives and allows these characters to act out the inner turmoil that in a circular manner defines them and the split in all their psyches.
Recrudescing to the overall narrative and theme, every portion we see throughout leads back to the main issue of outer facade and hidden motivations beneath the outer pretense. We get this with Shreck's power plant scheme (planning to suck the city's energy dry, another unsubtle suggestion of his vampiric nature), the Penguin's search for his parents (when he's really a long-time child-killer/molester that is searching out birth certificates of Gotham's elite), the Penguin's run for mayor (Shreck pulling the strings, with the Penguin posing as Gotham's savior against the violence he's actually causing) and on down the line throughout the movie's running, from opening the opening scene to the culmination that comes for this main theme and the film's four main characters in its closing moments. Waters wrote and Burton brilliantly adapted a very intricately designed script that is a piece of narrative and thematic brilliance as far as keeping a coherent line through each piece connecting back through the plotting to the characters' psyches and motives, and being wholly Batman in all such things whether it be general theme or analysis of the title character/said theme.
The climax of the film, as previously mentioned, is a work of thematic and narrative beauty, with all four of the main characters seeing either payoff to what's come before in regards subject(s) examined and/or arc closure of some kind. The Penguin's cessation being marked by utter failure, with his pets returning him in death to the very spot they first found his bassinet and gave him birth as the monstrous Penguin; Shreck being overloaded physically by the very power he so covets, seeing his end at the hands of his misbegotten creation; Catwoman/Selina rejecting Bruce's overtures, instead giving into her need for revenge, visually and mentally seeing a convergence and near-total conflict between the two sides of her psyche, in the end destroying her maker (and cleverly recalling James Whale's Bride visually with what I'd assert is an homage through her suddenly electrified-looking hairdo).
And then there's Batman/Wayne, who has two climaxes to his narrative arc in this film featuring all three of his antagonists. First there's the confrontation with the Penguin, where what was initially only hinted at is made explicit -- his jealousy towards this malignant, pitiful creature that doesn't have to wear a mask to define his inner turmoil; unlike Wayne, a physical freak whose psychosis is brought about by that freakishness instead of having his broken psychology create a separate outer symbolism that is driven by mental pain. The Penguin's taunt lies at the heart of the narrative line that ties Batman to him in the film, and reveals a disturbance within Bruce Wayne that points yet again more towards personal vendetta than any type of heroism. Very subversive, and ironically most fail to understand the deeper meaning of the dialogue exchange to the overall analysis of Batman's character in the film. It's subtle by virtue of not being overstated, and one has to pay attention to find this running issue within the film, but it runs deep and strikes just as deep a chord for those who pay attention to the conflict between the two characters. It's one of the great psychological statements about the title character in any medium.
While the Penguin longs to live above amongst normal society, Wayne shuns all he has and wants to exist outside that normal society. The Penguin is forced into his underground hideout and truly hates it, but Bruce has constructed his parallel lair and on some level prefers it to the mansion above (the same type of mansion that the Penguin was born in but thrown out of in disgrace). They're both orphans acting out from their loss, never truly developing into adults as can be seen through the childishness of their nightly pursuits -- and the gadgets therein -- no matter how vengeful or disturbing. The inversion of difference comes from the split in the parental loss -- Wayne having his ripped away from him, while Oswald was thrown away by his parents -- but the similarities in that same parental loss make the two very much the flip side of the same coin, both being recreated through the childhood event as something monstrous, vengeful and lost.
The confrontational climax between Selina/Catwoman and Bruce/Batman runs coherently from the Penguin issue/parallel of Wayne's psyche into another, possibly more adult area of concern. Selina losses her mask and it completes the break from control over her two sides, but Bruce willfully pulls away his mask to try and reach out to her -- the idea seems to be that an adult relationship, albeit with a person as disturbed and screwed up as him if not moreso, could this time (unlike in B89, where the opposite is true) hold precedence over the depression and sickness that has owned him from childhood. At the very least he's willing to allow Bruce Wayne as the dominant side of his psyche for possibly the first time in either movie (and, yes, I understand fully the fact that Bruce's pain is what drives every action of the separate Batman persona), as well as providing the visual and psychological statement of, at least that moment, Batman as the mask (as Penguin throughout the narrative already strongly suggested) rather than vice versa. This also connects back to my earlier comment as to Burton's own connection to his Batman making itself known within Returns -- the idea of the depressed little boy who finds power through fantasy only to, in this case I'd surmise, on some level grow up. A powerful statement about the character and very interesting to contemplate.
Shreck's total disbelief at Wayne being Batman is not only funny but telling -- how could that empty suit of a man be Batman? -- suggesting again the power of the bat motif/symbol to Wayne's pursuits. And the dialogue between Bruce/Batman and Selina/Catwoman is perfect in defining the two characters, in the most emotionally naked scene for the Batman character in any film version to date:
BATMAN
Don't you see, we're the same... split
down the middle... please...
Batman rips off his mask, looks straight at her.
CATWOMAN
Bruce, I could live with you in
your castle forever. Just like in
a fairy tale.
CATWOMAN
I just couldn't live with myself!
So don't pretend this is a happy
ending.
In the end her rejection and apparent death creates an appropriate denouement, fitting in the inability of the character to move beyond his fractured place with (or without?) Gotham's societal placement. As to whether he meant for a relationship with Selina to actually mean the end of Batman or the beginning of some sort of kinky partnership (if the Penguin is the childish side of Wayne's Batman persona, Selina is the S&M fetishist side of it) is unknowable, but the final scene of Wayne mentally broken and alone -- brooding once again as he was when we again found him at the start of the film -- without his mask even as the signal shines above is an appropriately frayed and subversive close to a film about pained people with broken psyches, and it also underscores the idea of Bruce forever remaining in one place emotionally. The ultimate comic book loner is here what the comics so often stray from: alone.
Even the final shot is totally appropriate, with Wayne now being the one left unaccompanied in the limo as the woman who shunned him for her costumed persona stands ready and waiting under it (also suggesting textually most explicitly that Selina/Catwoman's death and talk of 9 lives was literal, seeing as how she so quickly reappears whole both physically, and by the looks of her costume, mentally after having previously been shot multiple times; that this all takes place after finally vanquishing Shreck is also an interesting thematic and character element to the revived Catwoman visual in the final frames). The mirror and reverse of B89's final shot, leaving the audience this time with Wayne already having been unmasked on multiple levels within a film that is wholly about that very subject. Perfect."
But I think that is natural. Movies (or any artistic piece) should be bigger than its creators. I remember all those comments on 2001 or some Polanski movies (Knife in the Water specifically) that talked about symbolism here and there and when consulted the directors said they put things there just because they felt like it, that they didn't have a full explanation for those things. But well, reviewers should have a sharp analysis power, if they're going through life talking about other people's works, then at least they should show their own talents at the same time.
