Page - 86 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/01

86 | Simon Philipp Born www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/1, 75–104 surveillance state.27 this sinister interpretation does not move far from frank Miller’s version of the Dark Knight. “i guess i am tired of wearing masks.”28 in Batman Returns (1992), good and evil appear not as fixed, moral quantities, but as narrative constructs whose compositions are freely variable. they are attributions, masks, in which one appears before others and which others attach to one. they mean protection (Batman), but also freedom (Catwoman). the perpetual role-play goes on until the mask becomes the skin and the skin a mask. After a short liaison, Bruce Wayne and selina Kyle meet again at a masquerade ball, no disguises needed. in a dance of mask and identity, they recognize each other’s second face by means of a line of dialogue they had shared as their alter egos (see fig. 9–10, r.). they see the mask behind the face and ask, “Does this mean we have to start fighting?”29 the advanced schizophrenia of their dual identities prevents the reconciliation of their personalities both with themselves and with the other. the masquerade theme in Batman Returns (1992) becomes a game of signs. As in his other movies, Burton reinterprets established sign codes: black becomes white, and ugly is beautiful. Christmas, a leitmotif of the movie, is unmasked as commercial mass deception.30 the perversion of Christmas suggests the pro- tagonist’s lost innocence: too often the violence is aimed at tokens of infantility and cuteness or stems directly from them – as in the case of Batman’s gadget 27 heger 2010, 174. 28 Batman Returns (1992), 01:32:21–01:32:23. 29 Batman Returns (1992), 01:34:01–01:34:03. 30 Merschmann 2000, 64–65. Fig. 8: Batman watches over Gotham City using questionable means. Film still, Batman (Tim Burton, US 1989), 00:28:54.