Critical favoritism of Kurosawa above all Japanese directors among many, mostly culturally-blinkered, Western critics seems to have more to do with his comparitively high profile, beginning with Rashomon, than with his "ambition and modernism," though perhaps one follows from the other, just as among Scandanavian filmmakers, Bergman is better known and more widely praised than the incomparable Dreyer. Look, I don't disagree with Freiberg's claim that Naruse is less popularly prominent than Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi, but I think his critical reputation has historically included more supporters than detractors, despite the picture painted by Freiberg .
It's certainly true that Naruse has always had his supporters, the issue is that many of them damn him with faint praise and most have historically ranked him below Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi, for his lack of stylistic (and thematic) uniqueness. Richie says nice things about Naruse in many of his books, but it is obvious from each of those books that he doesn't value him as highly as Ozu or Kurosawa (he never felt the need to write "The Films of Mikio Naruse"). The point is that, historically, critical wisdom has held that Naruse is an interesting, but somewhat minor filmmaker, at least when compared to the formally rigorous masters of Japanese cinema, hence Freiberg's comment.
You're making my point, ptmd. Frieberg names Bordwell as one of two Naruse naysayers, but you've just cited evidence to the contrary. I think she is confusing Naruse's historically low profile with a negative critical consensus that is, at best, grossly overstated.
I guess I may not have made my point clearly enough. Bordwell does admire certain aspects of Naruse's work but he doesn't consider him the equal of the directors he's devoted books or large sections of books to. In other words, while I'm not 100% certain how Bordwell would rank Naruse relative to Kurosawa (I suspect he prefers Kurosawa), he clearly doesn't view him as a "parametric" director like Ozu or Mizoguchi.
Michael Kerpan is exactly right that the issue with Naruse, for many people, has always been the (perceived) lack of a characteristic visual style. It is true that Freiberg uses this to construct an argument that allows her to "save" Naruse, but I don't think she's being disingenuous in doing so and the truth is that these remain mitigating factors for a significant number of major critics and scholars.
