CREATIVITY RUNS THROUGH HIS VEINS WHETHER LEARNED OR INNATE, MUSIC OF THOMAS NEWMAN ALWAYS MEMORABLE.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Midway through ``American Beauty,'' the troubled teen Ricky, who seems to videotape all his experiences, asks his new friend Jane if she wants to see the most beautiful thing he's ever filmed. They (and we) sit for the next three minutes or so watching a video of a white plastic bag swirling in the wind. It is an oddly mesmerizing experience as the bag soars and falls, taking off in unexpected directions, graceful yet violent all at once.

``I always like what comes out of an orchestra when they're just tuning up (more) than when they're playing my music,'' says Thomas Newman. ``Because they're just doing something - noodling ... It embodies the unprotective element of the creative spirit. I enjoy it.''

The film composer laughs after saying it, asking if I'll clean up that quote, sounding a little unsure if he got his point across. He did, but Newman could also be talking about the flight of a bag, how something so ordinary can surprise us.

Indeed, Newman has spent some time thinking about that bag. He wrote the Academy Award-nominated score for ``American Beauty,'' and the theme for that scene - a succession of simple piano notes and chords - against slowly played strings.

Clearly a composer in demand, ``American Beauty'' is Newman's fifth Oscar nomination. He also scored another current Oscar-nominated film, ``The Green Mile,'' as well as current box-office champ ``Erin Brockovich.'' And while all these projects present different challenges, Newman says he tries not to approach a film with ``any preconception with how it should be solved musically. It limits my ability to be surprised by accidents and whimsical ideas.''

Listening to the score of ``American Beauty,'' you hear echoes of other Newman works - ``The Player,'' ``Unstrung Heroes,'' ``Oscar and Lucinda'' - with their rhythmic elements. Newman, who professes an affinity for 20th-century American composers such as Charles Ives, gives credit to director Sam Mendes for wanting to ``percuss'' the film, but ``I agreed in default.''

The opening theme in the film - the memorable ``Dead Already'' - sets the tone. Using marimba and xylophone - mallet instruments - it begins with five syncopated notes, which repeat, then grow as instrumentation is added. While other elements are introduced, it is the original five notes that are hammered home, so to speak, producing an emotional response that seems to take you in a number of different directions at once.

``The interesting thing about 'American Beauty' is how ambiguous it is tonally, where it lands and how surprised you are by being moved by it and equally how surprised you are by being hit with a loopy kind of ridiculousness,'' says the 44-year-old composer. ``So the real challenge was how to walk the fence of many kinds of tonal areas and not sacrifice any of the ambiguity.''

Loopy. Whimsical. Words that seem to define Newman's taste in instrumentation, too - tablas, kim-kim drums, bird calls, dulcimer, lap steel guitar, banjo, ukulele, tin whistle, detuned mandolin and saz (a lute-like Greek instrument) - on ``American Beauty.'' Sounds more like ingredients for a weird world hootenanny.

But while Newman admits his tastes are eclectic, ``I don't want to go to world music. I find and collect various instruments. My friends and I like to improvise on and hit on as a way of finding our creative places.''

That does sound a bit like a jam session, but Newman's background is anything but improvisational. He is the youngest son of Alfred Newman (who died when Thomas was 14), the legendary film composer who won nine Oscars from an amazing 45 nominations. His brother, David, is another film composer (``Galaxy Quest,'' ``Bowfinger''). His uncle Lionel, was also a composer who headed 20th Century Fox's music department for many years. And singer/songwriter/film composer Randy Newman is his cousin.

Yes, the Hollywood Hills are alive with the sound of Newmans. In Thomas' case, it's actually Pacific Palisades where he has his studio, in the same home he grew up in. So while Oscar nominations are ho-hum for the Newmans, they're not for Thomas.

``Every once in a while, I'm changing a diaper on my son and I go, 'Wow! I've been nominated.' ''

But while music was everywhere when he was a kid, he wasn't inclined to go into the family business. After getting his master's degree in musical composition from Yale, opportunities naturally seemed to come his way, including a chance to orchestrate Darth Vader's death scene in ``Return of the Jedi.'' Newman says there wasn't much to do because the score, by family friend John Williams, was so complete. Williams is also up for an Oscar for ``Angela's Ashes.''

Since then, Newman has relished working with some of Hollywood's most creative directors - Robert Altman, Steven Soderberg, Gillian Armstrong, Frank Darabont and, of course, Mendes - which lets him loose in his own creativity.

A bad score, says Newman, is not always the composer's fault. Some filmmakers are insecure about getting their point across. Mendes, he says, was interested in bringing out the best in people.

``I think the best directors, in a way, know how to step back and be a member of an audience,'' he says.

So, with the ``American Beauty'' scene, Newman was careful to step back himself, watching the flight and rhythm of the bag.

``I wanted to allow the music to walk through the scene without being intrusive,'' says Newman. The result is a perfect melding of image and sound - and a perfect melding of Newman's classical compositional style and his improvisational impulses.

``I like that part of the human spirit that takes you where it takes you,'' Newman says about improvisation. ``You let it lead you, as opposed to you leading it. I'm fascinated by that.''

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Photo: Oscar-nominated ``American Beauty'' composer Thomas Newman says he works without preconceptions because ``it limits my ability to be surprised by accidents and whimsical ideas.''

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer