Schlock on a grand scale is still schlock. I can't think of any Hollywood blockbuster that was as convincing in suggesting it had captured the actual feel of a historical period as John Sayles' low-budget productions Matewan and Eight Men Out.
Carl
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Oh, Carl. Doug asked. I proposed an answer. I tried to keep the answer out of measuring films against some more demanding asethetic criteria. I tried to pick movies in roughly the same arena as Titanic. If you seriously asked for something that captures a feeling I recognize, then my choice would be something like Scenes from a Marriage, where Bergman's suffocating and claustrophic technique matched the dimensions of the relationship portrayed---an intimacy that had aged waay too long.
In the context of the question, it isn't particularly relevant what an asethetically informed judgement is on any individual film, since the basic thrust of the question was why is Hollywood popular?
But instead of quibbling about that, how about developing the idea that schlock is the dramatic basis for that popularity. In other words why is schlock so popular?
Chuck Grimes