A new article by Geoff Boucher at Hero Complex focuses on this latest cinematic Catwoman and her place in the pantheon of feline burglars, with Hathaway providing some context for her character.  By way of introduction, though, the article opens with this description of a scene from the film.  Those averse to spoilers had best back off, but everyone else, read on:

Gotham City is a war zone. A ruthless madman named Bane has ripped away any sense of security and the citizens, haggard and clutching suitcases with refugee anxiety, sit behind barbed wire waiting to see what will blow up next. A hooded prisoner is dragged in – it’s Bruce Wayne, one of Gotham’s most famous faces – but the eyes of the crowd go instead to the woman in black standing at the top of the staircase.

“Sorry to spoil things, boys, but Bane needs these guys himself,” says sultry Selina Kyle, played here by actress Anne Hathaway, navigating the steps with stiletto heels that, on closer inspection, turn out to have serrated edges capable of leaving nasty claw marks in a fight. She also wears high-tech goggles that, when not in use, flip up and resemble feline ears.

So Nolan, the director who rationalized the Bat-ears by putting antennae in them, thought to explain an action-oriented woman's seeming inconvenient choice in footwear by putting blades on her stilettos?  Makes sense.

In The Dark Knight, Nolan and company played on contemporary fears of social instability, turning the Joker into an anarchist insurgent gleefully detonating IEDs throughout the city, undermining any sense of order.  The Dark Knight Rises would seem to take this tendency further, with Batman's fascist tendencies and traditional institutions unable to hold it together. 

Heath Ledger's take on that villain, as well as Christian Bale's Batman and even Liam Neeson's Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins, were all characterized partially by an attentiveness to theatricality and their own images.  According to Nolan, the new Catwoman will be no different, as he explained, 

She had something very important we needed for this character — she’s an incredibly talented but naturalistic actress, which makes her great in film. She also has terrific theatrical skill so she can project a persona and there’s a big aspect of the character that is a persona. She’s a multi-layered character and we needed a great actress that could rise to that challenge.

Hathaway is the latest actress to play Catwoman, joining a group that includes Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Halle Berry, but she contextualizes each version of the character in the Gotham they inhabit, saying,

What’s come before doesn’t limit or even affect this new version. It doesn’t affect me because each Catwoman – and this is true in the comics as well – she is defined by the context of the Gotham City created around her. Catwoman is so influenced by Gotham and whoever is creating Gotham at the time. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was informed by Tim Burton’s Gotham and Eartha Kitt was informed by Adam West’s Gotham. You have to live in whatever the reality of the world is and whatever Gotham is.

There's plenty more where that came from over at Hero Complex.

This is the first Batman go-around for Hathaway, as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, and Tom Hardy, playing the nefarious Bane.  Christian Bale is starring as the Caped Crusader for the final time, with Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman also finishing up their work as Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, and Lucius Fox.  Christopher Nolan directs from a screenplay by himself and Jonathan Nolan, working from a story cooked up by the director and Batman Begins co-writer David Goyer.

The Dark Knight Rises arrives in regular and jumbo-sized IMAX theaters on July 20, 2012.