PRESERVING THE SAMURAI TRADITION IN EDWARD ZWICK’S THE LAST SAMURAI (2003): A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH

This study is about how samurai preserves the samurai tradition in Japan. The Emperor of Japan is obsessed to progress Japan’s to become civilized country, in order to compete with other countries, decided to hire American advisors to help properly train his people to adapt to the modern age. The objectives of the study are analyzing the structural elements of this movie and to analyze the movie based on the sociological approach. This research employs a qualitative study, in this method; the writer uses two data sources, namely primary and secondary data sources. Primary data source is the movie itself and secondary data source is the sociological book and any material related to the study. The method of data collecting is library research, and technique of analysis is descriptive. The study comes to the following conclusions. First, based on the structural analysis of each elements, it shows that the character and characterization, casting, plot, setting, point of view, theme, mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, and editing are related to each other and form the unity into good quality of a movie. Second, based on the sociological analysis, there is close relation between the movie production and the social reality underlying it, such as the global issues of samurai tradition and modern age which has modern army. This movie is also critisizing the emperor’s obsession to progress Japan to become civilized country, in order to compete with other countries