Conclusion
There are two recurring musical themes in the film. These give the score unity and underline two sides of Kane’s personality. One theme emphasizes Kane’s power. Herrmann describes it as “a simple four-note figure in the brass. ” These notes are first heard at the beginning of the film as the camera explores the grounds of Xanadu. Herrmann writes that this motif is transformed in the course of the film, “becoming a vigorous piece of ragtime, a hornpipe polka, and at the end of the picture, a final commentary on Kane’s life” (1997, pp. 69-72). The second theme is that of Rosebud. According to Herrmann, it is first played as a solo on the vibraphone at Kane’s deathbed scene, but it is heard again and again throughout the film, providing a musical clue, for those who catch on, to the identity of Rosebud.
Not all the themes in the film are musical. The sound of clapping hands is brilliantly organized in a series of important sequences of the film to add psychological depth to the action. The sequence in which Kane meets Susan Alexander ends with Kane clapping as Susan sings for him in their private love nest. The sound of Kane’s hands clapping segues into a shot of a small group of people on the street clapping as Leland delivers a speech in support of Kane’s campaign to become governor. In another lightning mix transition, a sentence begun by Leland is completed by Kane some time later, as Kane is now seen speaking in a huge hall, not to a few claps, but to thunderous applause. Kane is defeated at the polls, after which Kane launches Susan Alexander on her ill-fated career as an opera singer.
At the end of one of Susan’s disastrous performances, Kane is the only one left applauding. The film has come full circle. By using applause as the link that binds these scenes together, Welles suggests that Kane’s desire for political power comes less from his progressive ideals than from his excessive need for approval and love, a desire satisfied by applause. The sound of applause is a leitmotif that symbolically links Susan’s singing career to Kane’s political career, exposing the raw (unacknowledged) need that makes both of these projects, as well as his marriage, fail.
