The Secret Foreshadowing of Two-Face in The Dark Knight Nobody Noticed
The Dark Knight trilogy by Christopher Nolan set new standards of quality for superhero movies.
Its depth and thorough development of its world still keep surprising viewers even now.
To this day the more attentive among them keep discovering various small details in these films, which are not evident on the first or often even the tenth viewing.
Just recently we've covered what almost certainly is an intentional Easter egg/unused plot hook in The Dark Knight, which long remained unnoticed.
And now a Redditor drew people's attention to a piece of foreshadowning which happened to be so subtle that nearly everyone missed it to this day. In his own words:
"In The Dark Knight, the books in Harvey Dent's office are neat and organized on the left side, but are messy and disorganized on the right side, this is foreshadowing the creation of Two-Face."
Of course, there is a "realistic" explanation for the bookshelves looking this way. On their right side in the picture above they contain actual books, which are easy to position in neat rows.
On the left are case files, and files are much more difficult, if possible at all, to arrange in the same tidy fashion. But symbolism is still evedent and intended.
As another user remarked: "This is definitely intentional, considering it's the same director who color-coded the different dream levels in Inception. "
And given that, we can only applause Nolan.
One can argue whether foreshadowing and symbolism so subtle that people have real trouble spotting them even on re-watching a film are good or bad, but they definitely indicate that some serious thought has been put into this film, far beyond mere checking of boxes.
While Nolan's films do not always end up great (for the latest example, Tenet (2020) was met with only a lukewarm reception), you can always expect them to be high-effort in terms of their cinematography.
Maybe one day Nolan would return to epic comic book adaptations, but for now he is finishing working on Oppenheimer, a biographical film upcoming this summer, and there is no information on his plans for the future.