The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui brought upon my affinity for gangster movies. Among my favorite are “Goodfellas,” “The Godfather,” and “The Departed.” A group of mafia men using reputation, intimidation, and violence in order to gain power are the main themes of these movies, and what this play by Bertolt Brecht centers upon.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to connect the dots to the fact that Adolf Hitler utilized similar practices to get his Nazi Party complete control of Germany. Brecht had a first-hand account of such developments, as he fled Germany shortly after Hitler gained power. The play as a whole really depicts the events that led up to this development in an accurate manner. The ironic thing was that it was set in America, and the setting of the play as a whole could represent how easy it could potentially be to implement a regime anywhere. There’s also a juxtaposition in the protagonists of the play and those in the background, which works to help the audience fixate their perceptions on Arturo Ui and his impending actions.
There seems to be a relative ease to the way Ui is able to gain so much power. Drug use and connections to win a court case, as well as unethical violence to garner control over a city, shows perhaps how easy it was for Hitler to do the same in expanding his empire. He built trust and then backstabbed everybody, depicting how crucial and devastating mind games are in these types of situations. What Brecht does effectively is condense Hitler’s actions into a context that all people can interpret. Nonetheless, it does call attention to the practice of corruption, which has plagued American society. Maybe it’s because Americans have never experienced an infamous figure like Hitler on home soil, so Brecht intends to help us gain an understanding of what he went through.
The overall legacy of this play is the theme of how people unknowingly and indirectly led to the rise of Ui’s regime. All those who were greedy and gave into the pressures made the path to obtaining ownership of Chicago that much easier. Our actions speak volumes, but we tend to ignore the fact that there can be a butterfly effect from them. As Americans, we must keep our eyes open to the realities around us in order to prevent such developments from occurring. As people, we are always the first obstacle that needs to be overcome.
