The Thin Red Line (1998 film)

The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American epic war film written and directed by Terrence Malick. It is the second screen adaptation of the 1962 novel of the same name by James Jones, following the 1964 film. Telling a fictionalized version of the Battle of Mount Austen, which was part of the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II, it portrays U.S. soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin. The novel's title alludes to a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy", from Barrack-Room Ballads, in which he calls British foot soldiers "the thin red line of heroes", referring to the stand of the 93rd Regiment in the Battle of Balaclava of the Crimean War.

The film marked Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. It co-stars Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto, John C. Reilly and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, footage of performances by Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, and Mickey Rourke had been removed (one of Rourke's scenes was included in the special features outtakes of the Criterion Blu-ray and DVD release). The film was scored by Hans Zimmer and shot by John Toll. Principal photography took place in Queensland, Australia and in the Solomon Islands.

The Thin Red Line received critical acclaim from critics, was noted for its philosophical depiction of war, Malick's direction, musical score, cinematography, screenplay, editing, performances of the cast, and was nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Sound. It won the Golden Bear at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival. Martin Scorsese ranked it as his second-favorite film of the 1990s. On At the Movies, Gene Siskel called it "the greatest contemporary war film I've seen."

## Plot

United States Army Private Witt goes AWOL from his unit in 1942 to live among the carefree Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a troopship by First Sergeant Welsh of his company. Witt is not allowed to rejoin his unit, and is instead punitively assigned to act as a stretcher bearer for the upcoming campaign.

The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, have been brought to the island of Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field, seize the island from the Japanese, and block off their route to Australia. C Company is commanded by Capt. James Staros. As they wait in the hold of a Navy transport ship, they contemplate their lives and the upcoming invasion.

The company lands on Guadalcanal unopposed. They march into the interior of the island, and along the way encounter natives and evidence of the ongoing Japanese presence. The company soon finds its objective: Hill 210, a key enemy position.

The attack commences at dawn the next day. Charlie Company storms up the hill, but is immediately repelled by heavy machine-gun fire. One group, a squad led by Sergeant Keck, hides behind a knoll safe from enemy fire “to await reinforcements”. When they are fired upon, Keck reaches for a grenade on his belt and accidentally pulls the pin, then throws himself back on the grenade so that he will be the only one killed by the blast. At another point, Sergeant Welsh attempts to rescue a dying soldier, only to provide him with enough morphine to put him out of his misery.

Lt. Col. Gordon Tall orders Staros over the field telephone to capture the bunker by frontal assault, at whatever cost. Staros balks, stating that he will not commit his men to what he sees as a suicide mission. Meanwhile, Pvt. Bell covertly scouts the summit of the hill by himself and assesses the Japanese stronghold.

Furious at Staros's refusal to obey his command, Tall ventures up to Charlie Company's position, accompanied by his battalion executive officer, Captain John Gaff. When they arrive, they find that the Japanese resistance seems to have lessened, and Tall's opinion of Staros is sealed. After being advised of Bell's reconnaissance of the Japanese position, Tall suggests a small detachment of men to perform a flanking maneuver on the bunker to capture it. Among the men to volunteer for the mission are Pvts. Witt, Doll, and Bell. Captain Gaff is given command of the detachment, and they proceed up the hill toward the bunker. A fierce battle ensues, but ultimately the American forces are victorious, and the hill is captured.

For their efforts, the men are given a week's leave, though they find little joy in the respite in the fighting. While the company is bivouacked, Staros is relieved of his command by Tall, who deems him too soft for the pressures of combat and suggests that he apply for reassignment and become a lawyer in the JAG Corps in Washington, D.C. During this time, Bell receives a letter from his wife, informing him that she has fallen in love with another man and seeks a divorce. Witt, meanwhile, comes across some of the locals and notices that they have grown distant and distrustful of outsiders, and regularly quarrel with each other.

The company is sent on patrol up a river under the command of Lieutenant Band. Witt, along with Cpl. Fife, and Pvt. Coombs, scout upriver and encounter an advancing Japanese column. As they attempt to retreat, Coombs is wounded. Witt draws away the Japanese to buy time for Fife, but Witt is encircled by one of their squads. The Japanese demand Witt surrender, but he raises his rifle and is killed. His body is buried by his squadmates, including a visibly saddened Sgt. Welsh. The company soon receives a new commander, Captain Bosche. They are relieved of duty and evacuated from Guadalcanal by a waiting LCT.

## Cast

Beyond these numerous top-billed cast, the ensemble included appearances in smaller roles by many other well-known actors, including Kirk Acevedo, Penny Allen, Mark Boone Junior, Matt Doran, Don Harvey, Danny Hoch, Thomas Jane, Miranda Otto, Donal Logue, and Nick Stahl.

## Production

### Screenplay

New York-based producer Bobby Geisler first approached Malick in 1978 and asked him to direct a film adaptation of David Rabe's play In the Boom Boom Room. Malick declined the offer, but instead discussed the idea of a film about the life of Joseph Merrick. Once word got out about David Lynch's film of The Elephant Man, he shelved the idea. In 1988, Geisler and John Roberdeau met with Malick in Paris about writing and directing a movie based on D. M. Thomas' 1981 novel The White Hotel. Malick declined, but told them that he would be willing instead to write either an adaptation of Molière's Tartuffe, or of James Jones' The Thin Red Line. The producers chose the latter and paid Malick \$250,000 to write a screenplay.

Malick began adapting The Thin Red Line on January 1, 1989. Five months later, the producers received his first draft, which was 300 pages long. In 1990, Malick met with James Jones' widow Gloria and Jones' daughter Kaylie about adapting The Thin Red Line into a film. The producers spent a lot of time talking with Malick about his vision of the film. Geisler said,

> Malick's Guadalcanal would be a Paradise Lost, an Eden, raped by the green poison, as Terry used to call it, of war. Much of the violence was to be portrayed indirectly. A soldier is shot, but rather than showing a Spielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a gorgeous bird with a broken wing flying out of a tree.

Malick spent years working on other projects, including a stage production of Sansho the Bailiff and a script known as The English-Speaker, spending \$2 million of the producers' money, half of which for writing. According to an article in Entertainment Weekly, the producers gained Malick's confidence by "catering to his every whim," providing him with obscure research material, including a book titled Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, an audiotape of Kodō's Heartbeat Drummers of Japan, information on the Navajo code talkers recruited by the United States Marine Corps, making his travel plans, and helping the director and his wife Michele get a mortgage for their Paris apartment.

By January 1995, Geisler and Roberdeau were broke and pressured Malick to decide which project he would complete. They approached Malick's former agent, Mike Medavoy, who was setting up his own production company, Phoenix Pictures, and he agreed to give them \$100,000 to start work on The Thin Red Line. Medavoy had a deal with Sony Pictures and Malick began scouting locations in Panama and Costa Rica before settling on the rain forests of northern Australia. In April 1997, three months before filming, Sony pulled the plug while crews were building the sets in Queensland, because new studio chairman John Calley did not think Malick could make his movie with the proposed \$52 million budget. Malick traveled to Los Angeles with Medavoy to pitch the project to various studios. 20th Century Fox agreed to put up \$39 million of the budget with the stipulation that Malick cast five movie stars from a list of 10 who were interested. Pioneer Films, a Japanese company, contributed \$8 million to the budget, and Phoenix added \$3 million.

### Casting

Casting for the film became a hot topic. When Sean Penn met Malick, he told him, "Give me a dollar and tell me where to show up." Scripts were also sent to Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall and Tom Cruise. In 1995, once word went out that Malick was making another movie after many years, numerous actors approached him, flooding the casting directors until they had to announce they wouldn't be accepting more requests. Some A-list actors including Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Gary Oldman, and George Clooney offered to work for a fraction and some even offered to work for free. Bruce Willis even went as far as offering to pay for first-class tickets for the casting crew, to get a few lines for the movie. At Medavoy's home in 1995, Malick staged a reading with Martin Sheen delivering the screen directions, and Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Peter Berg, Lukas Haas, and Dermot Mulroney playing the main roles. In June of that year, a five-day workshop was scheduled at Medavoy's with Pitt dropping by, and culminating with Malick putting on the soundtrack of Where Eagles Dare and playing Japanese taiko drums. Malick met with an interested Johnny Depp about the project at the Book Soup Bistro on the Sunset Strip.

Edward Norton flew out to Austin and met Malick, who had been impressed by the actor's screen test for Primal Fear. Matthew McConaughey reportedly took a day off filming A Time to Kill to see Malick. Others followed, including William Baldwin, Edward Burns, Josh Hartnett, Crispin Glover, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stephen Dorff, and Leonardo DiCaprio; the last of these flew up from the Mexico set of Romeo + Juliet to meet Malick at the American Airlines lounge in the Austin airport. Before the casting was finalized, Nicolas Cage had lunch with Malick in Hollywood in February 1996. Malick went off to scout locations and tried calling Cage that summer only to find out that his phone number had been disconnected. Tom Sizemore, however, was offered a more substantial role in Saving Private Ryan and, when he could not contact Malick for several days, decided to do Steven Spielberg's film instead. Actors Bill Pullman, Mickey Rourke, and Lukas Haas filmed scenes for the movie but were cut from the final film due to time constraints. Publicity stills of Pullman (as Sgt. MacTae, in a scene opposite Brody and Chaplin) can be seen online, Haas is pictured in the booklet of the CD soundtrack, and one of Rourke's scenes was restored for the Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD release of the film. Malick wrote a part specifically for Oldman, but the character was eventually scrapped before production began due to too many characters being in the film. He was later thanked in the credits along with Lukas, Viggo Mortensen, Sheen, Rourke, Pullman and Jason Patric.

James Caviezel, who was cast as Private Witt, credits Malick's casting of him as the turning point in his career.

### Principal photography

Cinematographer John Toll began talking to Malick in August 1996 several times over the phone about the film. Toll met Malick in September of the same year and was asked to do the film in the beginning of 1997. Malick and Toll began location scouting in February 1997 and started principal photography in June of that year.

Pre-production went slowly. Weeks before filming began, Malick told Geisler and Roberdeau not to show up in Australia where the film was being made, ostensibly because George Stevens Jr. would be the on-location producer supporting line producer Grant Hill. Malick told them that they had upset the studio for refusing to give up above-the-title production credit to Stevens. He did not tell them that in 1996 he had a clause inserted in his contract barring the producers from the set. Geisler and Roberdeau were mystified about this behavior; Geisler told Entertainment Weekly, "I didn't think he was capable of betrayal of this magnitude."

Malick and Toll shot for 100 days in Australia using Panavision cameras and lenses, 24 days in the Solomon Islands and three days in the United States. They scouted the historic battlefields on Guadalcanal and shot footage, but health concerns over malaria limited filming to daylight hours only. Logistics were also difficult to shoot the entire film there: As director of photography John Toll put it, "It's still a bit difficult to get on and off the island, and we had some scenes that involved 200 or 300 extras. We would have had to bring everybody to Guadalcanal, and financially it just didn't make sense." The Thin Red Line was filmed predominantly in the Daintree Rainforest and on Bramston Beach, both in north Queensland, Australia. Filming also took place on Dancer Mountain, which had such rough terrain that trailers and production trucks could not make it up the hill. A base camp was set up and roads carved out of the mountain. Transporting 250 actors and 200 crew members up the hill took two hours. Filming took place in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California near Santa Catalina Island.

Malick's unconventional filming techniques included shooting part of a scene during a bright, sunny morning only to finish it weeks later at sunset. He made a habit of pointing the camera away during an action sequence and focus on a parrot, a tree branch or other fauna. Malick's reputation and working methods commanded great respect among the actors, with both Woody Harrelson and John Savage staying on for an extra month after they finished all of their scenes just to watch him at work.

### Post-production

Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas and Mickey Rourke performed but their scenes were eventually cut. Billy Bob Thornton recorded narration that was scrapped. Martin Sheen and Viggo Mortensen participated in readthroughs of the script and are thanked in the end credits. Editor Leslie Jones was on location for five months and rarely saw Malick, who left her to her own devices. After principal photography wrapped, she came back with a five-hour first cut and spent seven months editing, with Thornton contributing three hours of narrative voice-over material. It was at this point that editor Billy Weber joined and they spent 13 months in post-production and the last four months mixing the film, using four Avid machines with a fifth added at one point. Malick edited the footage one reel at a time with the sound off while listening to a Green Day CD. There were no preview screenings but several in-house ones, the largest for marketing executives which was attended by 15 people. The editors faced the challenge of blending footage of veteran actors with less-experienced ones, integrating the many cameos, and the voice-overs. According to Jones, "Malick removed scenes with dialogue whenever possible, with the final film varying greatly from the original concept." Four months after principal photography, Malick invited Toll to a rough-cut screening of the film. In December 1998, Toll did the first color correction at the lab prior to the film's release in North America.

The editing resulted in many of the well-known cast members being on screen for only a brief period. John Travolta and George Clooney's appearances are little more than cameos, yet Clooney's name appears prominently in the marketing of the movie. The unfinished film was screened for the New York press in December 1998 and Adrien Brody attended a screening to find that his originally significant role, "to carry the movie", as he put it, had been reduced to two lines and approximately five minutes of screen time.

Malick was upset that the studio screened his unfinished version for critics and Penn ended up helping him in the editing room, shaping the final version. Malick spent three more months and cut 45 additional minutes from the film. The director refused to subject his film to test screenings before delivering his final cut. After Geisler and Roberdeau told their story to Vanity Fair magazine, Medavoy's attorneys declared them in breach of contract and threatened to remove their names from the film unless they agreed to do no future interviews until after the Academy Awards.

## Music

The film score was composed by Hans Zimmer, with additional music from John Powell. The album was nominated for Best Dramatic Score at the 71st Academy Awards. It was Hans Zimmer's fifth Oscar nomination as a composer, but he lost out to Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful (music by Nicola Piovani). The album was released by RCA Victor and conducted by Gavin Greenaway. Among the music not written by Zimmer which appears in the film is In Paradisum from Requiem by Gabriel Fauré and the opening minutes of The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives.

Zimmer wrote several hours of music, and an abundance of different themes, before Malick started to shoot the film. The director played the music on the set, while filming, to get himself, and the rest of the crew and actors in the right frame of mind.

The official soundtrack features tracks that were not used on the film and some tracks from the film are not found on the CD. The film features several pieces of Melanesian choral music sung by the Choir of All Saints in Honiara and the Melanesian Brotherhood in Tabalia, only one of which is featured on the soundtrack. However, another soundtrack was released containing several tracks from the choirs, titled Melanesian Choirs: The Blessed Islands – Chants from the Thin Red Line, which has since gone out of circulation. This album was re-released by La-La Land Records as part of a special edition in 2019.

## Reception

### Box office

The Thin Red Line was given a limited release on December 25, 1998, in five theaters where it grossed \$282,534 on its opening weekend. The film was given a wide release on January 15, 1999, in 1,528 theaters where it grossed \$9.7 million during its opening weekend. The film earned \$98,126,565 at the worldwide box office.

### Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 81% based on 103 reviews, and an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Thin Red Line is a daringly philosophical World War II film with an enormous cast of eager stars." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Gene Siskel described The Thin Red Line as the "finest contemporary war film I've seen, supplanting Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from earlier this year, or even Oliver Stone's Platoon from 1986." A more subdued Roger Ebert gave it three stars out of four, saying that it felt confused and unfinished. He wrote, "The movie's schizophrenia keeps it from greatness (this film has no firm idea of what it is about), but doesn't make it bad. It is, in fact, sort of fascinating... The battle scenes themselves are masterful, in creating a sense of the geography of a particular hill, the way it is defended by Japanese bunkers, the ways in which the American soldiers attempt to take it ... Actors like Sean Penn, John Cusack, Jim Caviezel and Ben Chaplin find the perfect tone for scenes of a few seconds or a minute, and then are dropped before a rhythm can be established."

In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Some films deal in plot truth; this one expresses emotional truth, the heart's search for saving wisdom, in some of the most luscious imagery since Malick's last film, the 1978 Days of Heaven." Mike Clark of USA Today gave the film four out of four stars. Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote, "The Thin Red Line is a movie about creation growing out of destruction, about love where you'd least expect to find it and about angels – especially the fallen kind – who just happen to be men."

Andrew Johnston of Time Out New York wrote: "Like Malick's previous efforts – Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978) – Line is a film of incredible beauty. However, the atmosphere created by John Toll's breathtaking cinematography and Hans Zimmer's powerful score is occasionally compromised. The parade of cameos (John Travolta, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson and John Cusack briefly appear) is somewhat distracting, and the fact that Bell and Witt both have Appalachian accents sometimes makes the characters hard to differentiate. Yet, even though it's confusing at times (and perhaps a little long), Line is still a film of rare substance and power."

Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B−" in his review for Entertainment Weekly and wrote, "The Thin Red Line could, I think, turn out to be this season's Beloved, a movie too paralyzingly high-minded to connect with audiences." In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin called it "intermittently brilliant" and wrote, "The heart-piercing moments that punctuate its rambling are glimpses of what a tighter film might have been."

In a special episode of Siskel and Ebert, guest host Martin Scorsese selected The Thin Red Line as the second best film of the 1990s behind The Horse Thief.

### Accolades

Time magazine ranked Malick's film \#6 on their Best of 1998 Cinema list.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic for the Chicago Reader, ranked Malick's film as his second favorite film of 1999.

## Home media

On September 28, 2010, The Criterion Collection released a special edition of The Thin Red Line on DVD and Blu-ray with a new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised and approved by Terrence Malick and cinematographer John Toll. The release was met with positive reviews.

## In popular culture

One quote from the movie ("This great evil. Where's it come from? ..."), spoken by actor John Dee Smith (Private Edward Train), has been used in two songs:

- Serves as an intro for "Have You Passed Through This Night?" by post-rock band Explosions in the Sky, released in 2001.
- Sampled in "Eye for an Eye" by electronic music act UNKLE, released in 2003.

1998 film by Terrence Malick


Mascarene parrot

The Mascarene parrot or mascarin (Mascarinus mascarinus) is an extinct species of parrot that was endemic to the Mascarene island of Réunion in the western Indian Ocean. The taxonomic relationships of this species have been subject to debate; it has historically been grouped with either the Psittaculini parrots or the vasa parrots, with the latest genetic study favouring the former group.

The Mascarene parrot was 35 cm (14 in) in length with a large red bill and long, rounded tail feathers. Its legs were red, and it had naked red skin around the eyes and nostrils. It had a black facial mask and partially white tail feathers, but the colouration of the body, wings and head in the living bird is unclear. Descriptions from life indicate the body and head were ash grey, and the white part of the tail had two dark central feathers. In contrast, stuffed specimens and old descriptions based on them indicate that the body was brown and the head bluish. This may be due to the specimens having changed colour as a result of ageing and exposure to light. Very little is known about the bird in life.

The Mascarene parrot was first mentioned in 1674, and live specimens were later brought to Europe, where they lived in captivity. The species was scientifically described in 1771. Only two stuffed specimens exist today, in Paris and Vienna. The date and cause of extinction for the Mascarene parrot is unclear. The latest account, from 1834, is considered dubious, so it is probable that the species became extinct prior to 1800, and may have become extinct even earlier.

## Taxonomy

The Mascarene parrot was first mentioned by the French traveller Sieur Dubois in his 1674 travelogue and only described a few times from life afterwards. At least three live specimens were brought to France in the late 18th century and kept in captivity, two of which were described while alive. Today, two stuffed specimens exist; the holotype, specimen MNHN 211, which is in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, while the other, specimen NMW 50.688, is in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. The latter specimen was bought from the Leverian Museum during a sale in London in 1806. A third stuffed specimen existed around the turn of the 18th century. The Mascarene parrot was scientifically described as Psittacus mascarinus (abbreviated as "mascarin") by the Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1771. This name was first used by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 but was not intended as a scientific name. The name is a reference to the Mascarene Islands, which were themselves named after their Portuguese discoverer, Pedro Mascarenhas.

Early writers claimed the Mascarene parrot was found on Madagascar, an idea that led the French naturalist René Primevère Lesson to coin the junior synonym Mascarinus madagascariensis in 1831. His new genus name prevailed and, when the Italian zoologist Tommaso Salvadori combined it with the earlier specific name in 1891, it became a tautonym (a scientific name in which the two parts are identical). Lesson also included species of the Tanygnathus and Psittacula genera in Mascarinus, but this was not accepted by other writers. The following year, the German herpetologist Johann Georg Wagler erected the genus Coracopsis for the Mascarene parrot (which became Coracopsis mascarina under this system) and the lesser vasa parrot (Coracopsis nigra). The English zoologist William Alexander Forbes, believing that mascarinus was invalid as a specific name, since it was identical to the genus name, coined the new name Mascarinus duboisi in 1879, in honour of Dubois.

An unidentified dark parrot seen alive by the Swedish naturalist Fredrik Hasselqvist in Africa was given the name Psittacus obscurus by Linnaeus in 1758, who again synonymised it with the Mascarene parrot in 1766. Because of this association, some authors believed it was from the Mascarene Islands as well, but this dark parrot's description differs from that of the Mascarene parrot. This disagreement led some authors to use now-invalid combinations of the scientific names, such as Mascarinus obscurus and Coracopsis obscura. The unidentified parrot may have been a grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) instead. Another unidentified parrot specimen, this one brown and housed in Cabinet du Roi, was described by the French naturalist Comte de Buffon in 1779 under his entry for the Mascarene parrot, in which he pointed out similarities and differences between the two. In 2007, the English palaeontologist Julian Hume suggested the possibility that this might have been a lesser vasa parrot, if not a discoloured old Mascarene grey parakeet (Psittacula bensoni). The specimen is now lost. English zoologist George Robert Gray assigned some eclectus parrot (Eclectus roratus) subspecies from the Moluccas to Mascarinus in the 1840s, but this idea was soon dismissed by other writers.

Subfossil parrot remains were later excavated from grottos on Réunion and reported in 1996. X-rays of the two existing stuffed Mascarene parrots made it possible to compare the remaining bones with the subfossils and showed these were intermediate in measurements in comparison to the modern specimens. The lesser vasa parrot was introduced to Réunion as early as 1780 but, though the subfossil parrot bones were similar to that species in some aspects, they were more similar to those of the Mascarene parrot and considered to belong to it.

The binomial name was emended from M. mascarinus to M. mascarin by the IOC World Bird List in 2016, to conform with how other species epithets by Linnaeus have been treated. In 2020, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature conserved the name M. mascarinus as a justified emendation of the original spelling.

### Evolution

The affinities of the Mascarene parrot are unclear, and two hypotheses have competed since the mid-19th century. Some authors grouped it with the Coracopsinae (of African origin) due to its dark plumage, and others with the Psittaculinae parrots (of Asian origin) based on the large red beak, a feature which is diagnostic for that group. Its plumage pattern was mostly atypical for a psittaculine, though other members have black facial patterns. Although little is known about most extinct parrot species of the Mascarenes, subfossil remains show that they shared common features, such as enlarged heads and jaws, reduced pectoral bones, and robust leg bones. Hume supported their common origin in the radiation of the Psittaculini tribe based on morphological features and the fact that Psittacula parrots have managed to colonise many isolated islands in the Indian Ocean.

Sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene, so it was possible for species to colonise the Mascarene Islands from other areas. As suggested by the British ecologist Anthony S. Cheke and Hume in 2008, the Psittaculini could have invaded the area several times, as many of the species were so specialised that they may have evolved significantly on hotspot islands before the Mascarenes emerged from the sea. Réunion is 3 million years old, which is enough time for new genera to evolve, but many endemics would have been wiped out by the eruption of the volcano Piton des Neiges between 300,000 and 180,000 years ago. Most recent and extant species would therefore probably be descendants of animals which had recolonised the island from Africa or Madagascar after this event. If the Mascarene parrot had in fact evolved into a distinct genus on Réunion prior to the volcanic eruption, it would have been one of the few survivors of this extinction event.

A 2011 genetic study by the British geneticist Samit Kundu and colleagues (which sampled the Paris specimen) found that the Mascarene parrot was grouped among the subspecies of the lesser vasa parrot from Madagascar and nearby islands and therefore not related to the Psittacula parrots. It also found that the Mascarene parrot line diverged 4.6 to 9 million years ago, prior to the formation of Réunion, indicating this must have happened elsewhere. In 2012, Leo Joseph and colleagues acknowledged the finding but pointed out that the sample might have been damaged and that further testing was needed before the issue could be fully resolved. They also noted that if Mascarinus was confirmed to be embedded within the genus Coracopsis, the latter would become a junior synonym, since the former name is older. In 2012, Hume expressed surprise at these findings due to the anatomical similarities between the Mascarene parrot and other parrots from the Mascarene islands that are believed to be psittaculines. He also pointed out that there is no fossil evidence found on other islands to support the hypothesis that the species evolved elsewhere before reaching Réunion.

In 2017, the German biologist Lars Podsiadlowski and colleagues sampled the Vienna specimen for a new genetic study and found that the Mascarene parrot was indeed part of the Psittacula group as suggested by Hume, clustering with the extinct Seychelles parakeet (P. wardi) and Asian subspecies of the Alexandrine parakeet (P. eupatria). The Mascarene parrot was therefore interpreted as having descended from an ancestral lineage of Alexandrine parakeets that had dispersed from Asia towards the Mascarene islands across the Indian Ocean. The researchers suggested that the 2011 genetic study had probably used a composite of sequences from two other parrot species sampled for the study (including a lesser vasa parrot), a result of contamination during laboratory procedures. The 2017 study also found that the parrots of the genus Tanygnathus were grouped among Psittacula parrots, and proposed that Tanygnathus and Mascarinus should therefore be merged into the genus Psittacula.

The cladograms below shows the placement of the Mascarene parrot according to the 2011 and 2017 DNA studies:

Kundu and colleagues, 2011:

Podsiadlowski and colleagues, 2017:

In 2018, the American ornithologist Kaiya L. Provost and colleagues also found the Mascarene parrot (using the sequence of Podsiadlowski and colleagues) and Tanygnathus species to group within Psittacula, and stated this argued for breaking up the latter genus. To solve the issue that the genera Mascarinus, Tanygnathus, as well as Psittinus fell within the genus Psittacula according to genetic studies, making that genus paraphyletic (an unnatural grouping), the German ornithologist Michael P. Braun and colleagues proposed in 2019 that Psittacula should be split into multiple genera, thereby retaining Mascarinus.

## Description

The Mascarene parrot was 35 cm (14 in) in length. The wing was 211 mm (8.3 in), the tail 144–152 mm (5.7–6.0 in), the culmen 32–36 mm (1.3–1.4 in), and the tarsus 22–24 mm (0.87–0.94 in). It had a large red bill and moderately long, rounded tail feathers. It had a black velvet-like facial mask on the front part of the head. There are several discrepancies in how the colour of the body, wings, tail feathers and the head have historically been described and depicted. In 1674, Dubois described live specimens as being "petit-gris" which is the colour of the dark phase of the red squirrel. According to Hume, this colour is a dark blackish grey or brown.

In 1760, Brisson published the following description based on a captive bird (which may have been the specimen now preserved in Paris):

> Upperparts of head and neck clear (ash) grey. Back, rump, underparts of neck, breast, belly, sides, legs, scapular feathers, upper coverts of tail very-dark (ash) grey. Wing feathers of the same colour. The tail is composed of 12 feathers: the two median ones are also very-dark (ash) grey. All the lateral ones are of the same colour, except that they have a little white at their base. The eyes are surrounded by a naked skin, bright red. Pupil black, iris red. The base of the superior half of the beak is also surrounded by a red naked skin in which the nostrils are placed. Beak similarly red. Legs pale flesh. Claws grey-brown. I am unaware from which country it is found. I have seen it living in Paris.

Instead of grey, several later authors described the body as brown and the head as bluish lilac, based on stuffed specimens, and this has become the "orthodox image" of the bird. Live birds were never described with these colours. Hume proposed that this colouration is an artifact of the taxidermy specimens having aged and being exposed to light, which can turn grey and black to brown. Such a transformation has also turned an aberrant dickcissel (Spiza americana) specimen (sometimes considered a distinct species, "Townsend's dickcissel"), from grey to brown. The two extant Mascarene parrot specimens also differ from each other in colouration. The Paris specimen has a greyish-blue head and a brown body, paler on the underparts. Its tail and wing feathers were severely damaged by sulphuric acid in an attempt at fumigation in the 1790s. The Vienna specimen is a pale brown on the head and body overall, with an irregular distribution of white feathers on the tail, back, and wings. In 2017 the Australian ornithologist Joseph M. Forshaw found it hard to accept that all the illustrations that showed the colour as brown were wrong; he found it more likely that the brown would have merely faded in intensity rather than from grey to brown. He stated that by the time the earliest known illustrations of the bird were made, it is unlikely they would already have faded to brown because of exposure to light. He also doubted that poor diet of caged birds would have consistently turned them brown, and instead accepted the "orthodox image" of the bird as brown.

Confusion over the colouration of the Mascarene parrot has also been furthered by a plate by French engraver François-Nicolas Martinet in Buffon's 1779 Histoire Naturelle Des Oiseaux, the first coloured illustration of this species. It shows the bird as brown with a purplish head, and the strength of these colours differs considerably between copies, a result of having been hand-coloured by many different artists who worked under Martinet in his workshop. Across these copies, the body ranges from chestnut brown to greyish chocolate, the tail from light grey to blackish grey-brown, and the head from bluish grey to dove-grey. The plate also lacks two dark central tail feathers without white bases, a feature described by Brisson, and these features have been repeated by subsequent artists. Martinet's illustration and Buffon's description were perhaps based on the Paris specimen.

In 1879, Forbes stated the cere was covered by feathers which concealed the nostrils. This contradicts other accounts that mention that the nostrils were surrounded by red skin. Forbes based his description on the Paris specimen which had its skull and mandible removed for study by the French zoologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards prior to 1866. This may have led to the distortion of the shape of the head and nostrils as indicated by the illustration in Forbes' article. The skull of the Mascarene parrot was moderately flattened from top to bottom, the diameter of the nares (bony nostril) was larger than the width of the internal septum (the wall between the nostrils), and there was an indistinct notch on the upper edge of the rostrum (bony beak). The mandibular fenestra (opening at the side of the mandible) was absent, and the back end of the mandibular symphysis (where the two halves of the lower jaw connected) was broadly oval, the angulus mandibulae (the lower margin at the back of the mandible) was flattened instead of angled, and the symphysis was sharply angled downward.

## Behaviour and ecology

Very little is known about the Mascarene parrot in life. Since several specimens were kept alive in captivity, it was probably not a specialised feeder. That the Vienna specimen was partially white may have been the result of food deficiency during a long period in captivity; the clipped primary wing feathers indicate it was caged. Little was known about parrot-diet in the 1700s, and the Vienna specimen may not have received enough of the amino acid tyrosine through its food, which it would have needed for melanin synthesis. In other parrots, this would have resulted in orange instead of white colour in the affected feathers, due to the presence of the pigment psittacin, but Coracopsis parrots and the Mascarene parrot are the only parrots that lack this pigment. The specimen has also been described as "partially albinistic" at times, though true albinism (lack of the enzyme tyrosinase) can by definition never only be partial.

In 1705, the French cartographer Jean Feuilley gave a description of the parrots of Réunion and their ecology which indicates that they fattened themselves seasonally:

> There are several sorts of parrot, of different sizes and colours. Some are the size of a hen, grey, the beak red [Mascarene parrot]; others the same colour the size of a pigeon [Mascarene grey parakeet], and yet others, smaller, are green [Réunion parakeet]. There are great quantities, especially in the Sainte-Suzanne area and on the mountainsides. They are very good to eat, especially when they are fat which is from the month of June until the month of September because at that time the trees produce a certain wild seed that these birds eat.

The Mascarene parrot may have once inhabited Mauritius as well based on a 17th-century account by the English traveller Peter Mundy which mentioned "russet parrots". This is a possibility, since Réunion and Mauritius do share some types of animals, but no fossil evidence has yet been discovered.

Many other endemic species of Réunion became extinct after the arrival of humans and the resulting disruption of the island's ecosystem. The Mascarene parrot lived alongside other recently extinct birds such as the hoopoe starling, the Réunion ibis, the Réunion parakeet, the Mascarene grey parakeet, the Réunion swamphen, the Réunion scops owl, the Réunion night heron, and the Réunion pink pigeon. Extinct Réunion reptiles include the Réunion giant tortoise and an undescribed Leiolopisma skink. The small Mauritian flying fox and the snail Tropidophora carinata lived on Réunion and Mauritius but vanished from both islands.

## Extinction

Of the eight or so parrot species endemic to the Mascarenes, only the echo parakeet (Psittacula echo) of Mauritius has survived. The others probably all became extinct due to a combination of excessive hunting and deforestation. The cause and date of extinction for the Mascarene parrot itself is uncertain. In 1834, the German zoologist Carl Wilhelm Hahn published an often-cited account of a live Mascarene parrot in the possession of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria. The bird must have been very old at the time, and Hahn claimed an accompanying illustration was drawn after this specimen. The IUCN Red List accepts the 1834 account as the last mention of a live specimen.

The veracity of Hahn's claim was questioned as early as 1876, and the illustration appears to be plagiarised from the plate by François-Nicolas Martinet which was published at least 50 years earlier. After King Maximilian died in 1825, his collection was auctioned off, but no Mascarene parrot was mentioned in the inventory of species. Hahn did not mention the date in which he actually saw the bird which could have been long before 1834. The fact that Martinet's image was copied and that no mounted specimen exists (though such a rare bird would probably have been preserved) makes Hahn's account dubious. He may instead have based his account on other sources or even hearsay.

If Hahn's account is disregarded, the Mascarene parrot probably became extinct prior to 1800. The last account of wild specimens on Réunion is from the 1770s. It is thought that the Mascarene parrot went extinct in the wild while captive specimens still survived in Europe, since specimens are known to have lived there after the last mention of wild birds. In the 1790s, French naturalist François Levaillant stated that the bird was rare and that he had seen three of them in France.

One of the last definite accounts of live specimens is the following 1784 description by Mauduyt based on captive birds:

> The Mascarin is found at Ile Bourbon [Réunion]; I have seen several alive in Paris, they were rather gentle birds; they had in their favour only that the red beak contrasted agreeably with the dark background of their plumage; they had not learnt to talk.

Contrary to Feuilley's claims, Dubois mentioned that the Mascarene parrot was not edible which may have led to Réunion visitors mostly ignoring it. It was the last of the indigenous parrots of Réunion to become extinct. The only endemic bird species on Réunion that disappeared after the Mascarene parrot was the hoopoe starling in the mid-19th century.

## Cited texts

Extinct species of bird from Réunion

Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN


Alou Diarra

Alou Diarra (born 15 July 1981) is a French former professional footballer. He was a France international from 2004 until 2012. As of the 2022–23 season, he is the manager of Troyes' under-19 side in the Championnat National U19.

He primarily played as a defensive midfielder, but could also deputise as a centre-back if necessary. Diarra is described as a player who is "strong, athletic and very powerful" and possesses a "combative edge" similar to former French international Patrick Vieira. He is also known for his leadership ability and has served as captain of both Bordeaux domestically and France internationally.

Diarra began his career playing for clubs based in Seine-Saint-Denis, such as CSL Aulnay and hometown club FC Villepinte. In 1997, he joined Louhans-Cuiseaux and made his professional debut with the club in the 1999–2000 season while the club was playing in the second division. In 2000, Diarra was recruited by German club Bayern Munich. He spent two years playing on the club's reserve team, Bayern Munich II. In 2002, he was signed by compatriot Gérard Houllier as part of the manager's French Revolution to play for English club Liverpool. Diarra's stint at the club was deemed a disappointment as he spent both years at the club on loan in France playing for Le Havre, Bastia, and Lens.

After a successful 2004–05 season with Lens, Diarra made a permanent return to France joining the club from Liverpool on a permanent deal. He spent two seasons at the club amassing over 70 appearances before signing with the then five-time defending champions Lyon. At Lyon, Diarra struggled for playing time and left the club to join Bordeaux after one year. He did earn a winner's medal as a result of the club winning the 2006–07 Ligue 1 title. With Bordeaux, Diarra was ever-present within the team under manager Laurent Blanc. He was a prominent figure on the Bordeaux team that won the league and league cup double in the 2008–09 season. Diarra has also won two Trophée des champions while playing for the club.

Diarra is also a France international. Prior to playing at senior level, he played at under-20 and under-21 level. With the under-20 team, Diarra played on the team that participated in the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship. He made his senior international debut in October 2004 in a friendly match against the Republic of Ireland. Diarra has participated in both the 2006 and 2010 editions of the FIFA World Cup. In the 2006 competition, he appeared in a group stage match against Togo and the final match against Italy as a substitute. In the 2010 edition, Diarra captained France for the first time in the team's final group stage match against South Africa.

## Personal life

Diarra was born in the commune of Villepinte in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis to Malian parents. He has three younger brothers and one sister. One of his brothers, Zanké, is also a footballer and currently plays for French club Quevilly in the Championnat National, the third division of French football. He had previously played for the reserve team of professional club Paris Saint-Germain, but was released in 2010. Another brother, Idrissa, assists in running a social networking site that helps amateur footballers find a club. Diarra and his siblings were raised in the neighborhood of Rose des Vents located in the nearby commune of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where his parents still reside. He is currently married and has two children. On 28 May 2010, ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Diarra departed the national team's training camp to be beside his wife as she gave birth to his second child.

## Club career

### Early career

Diarra began his football career at hometown club CSL Aulnay. After six years in Aulnay, Diarra moved back to his birth city to join FC Villepinte. While in the youth academy of Villepinte, he struggled to attract the attention of professional clubs often personally contacting clubs in order to earn trials. Diarra was ultimately denied several opportunities, most notably by Le Mans and, according to his brother, the struggle made the elder Diarra "very motivated to succeed".

In 1997, Diarra was signed to an amateur contract by professional club CS Louhans-Cuiseaux who were playing in Ligue 2, the second level of French football, and was inserted into the club's youth academy. In the 1998–99 season, Diarra was promoted to the club's reserve team and spent two seasons playing there. In the latter part of the 1999–2000 season, he was called up to the senior team by manager Philippe Hinschberger. On 15 April 2000, Diarra made his professional debut in a 2–1 defeat to Toulouse picking up a yellow card. Two weeks later, he made his first professional start in the team's 3–2 loss to Niort. In his final appearance with Louhans-Cuiseaux, Diarra received his first red card of his career after incurring two yellow card infractions in a 2–1 defeat to Le Mans. Louhans-Cuiseaux finished the campaign in last place and were relegated to the semi-professional Championnat National, the third division of French football. After the season, Louhans-Cuiseaux attempted to tie down Diarra on a long-term deal and offered the player a trainee contract. Diarra refused the deal and was subsequently available to sign with any club on a free transfer.

### Bayern Munich

During the summer of 2000, Diarra was signed by German club Bayern Munich after the club saw him play one match with Louhans-Cuiseaux. Upon his arrival to the club, he was immediately placed onto the club's reserve team, Bayern Munich II, in the Regionalliga Süd, the (then) third level of German football. Diarra was a regular within the team playing alongside the likes of Owen Hargreaves, Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and Zvjezdan Misimović. In his first season with the reserve team, he appeared in 28 matches scoring four goals. Diarra's influence in the team was immediate as he scored his first goal for the team in the first league match of the season against VfR Mannheim in a 4–2 defeat. His combative style of play also began to take shape as he collected nine yellow cards during the campaign with seven of them coming in the team's first 17 matches. The season was ultimately a success for Diarra partly due to the player being promoted to the senior team for the 2001–02 season by manager Ottmar Hitzfeld. He was assigned the number 30 shirt.

Diarra began the 2001–02 season by making the bench in several of the team's league matches in August and September, but failing to make an appearance. In October 2001, he was dropped back down to the club's reserve team and appeared in four matches before earning promotion back to the senior team for its 2001 Intercontinental Cup showdown with Argentine club Boca Juniors. Diarra made the bench for the match, but did not feature as Bayern won the match courtesy of an extra time goal from Samuel Kuffour. The victory gave Diarra his first major honour of his career. Afterwards, he returned to the reserve team and later suffered an injury, which required a lengthy absence. Diarra rejoined the team in March 2002 under new manager Hermann Gerland and made nine more appearances. Following the season, Diarra was offered a new three-year contract with the club, but rejected it citing his limited playing time. Despite his disappointing stint with Bayern, which included failing to make an appearance with the club's senior team, in 2009, Diarra stated "I have very fond memories of my time in Bayern". Following Diarra's success at Bordeaux, Bayern's general manager Uli Hoeneß admitted that Diarra's rise to prominence as a footballer is "one of the seven wonders of the world". Hoeneß admitted that he was surprised by Diarra's resurgence stating "If somebody had told me [he would return for a UEFA Champions League game] five years ago and made a bet with me, I would have lost a fortune". Since Diarra departing the club in 2002, due to FIFA compensation laws, Bayern have recouped over €800,000 as a result of the player's future transfers.

### Liverpool

On 3 July 2002, English club Liverpool confirmed its interest in signing Diarra under the guidance of manager Gérard Houllier who had likened the player to Patrick Vieira. Liverpool were also in competition with Italian club Juventus and several French clubs. On 9 July, Liverpool confirmed that the club had signed the player from Bayern Munich. Diarra agreed to a five-year contract and made his club debut against Le Havre during the club's pre-season. A day after the match against Le Havre, it was reported that Diarra was on a verge of a loan move to the same club. On 1 August, the loan was confirmed.

#### Loan stints in France

Diarra made his debut for Le Havre on 17 August 2002 in the team's 1–1 draw with Strasbourg appearing as a substitute. He was a frequent starter for the majority of the fall season, but, following the winter break, began appearing primarily as a substitute. In September 2002, Diarra's contract dispute with Louhans-Cuiseaux came into the spotlight after his former club admitted that the player was reportedly banned from playing in France professionally for three years due to moving abroad without Louhans-Cuiseaux receiving a trainers' compensation fee. Louhans-Cuiseaux reported the situation to FIFA, however, the organization ruled in favor of Diarra who was allowed to continue his career with Le Havre. Diarra scored his first professional goal on 25 January 2003 in a 2–1 defeat to Laval in the Coupe de France. He finished the campaign with 28 total appearances.

In the 2003 off-season, Diarra admitted that he would love to return to Liverpool stating "I'm someone who is ambitious and I hope to win my place at Anfield next season". However, in July 2003, Houllier confirmed that Diarra would remain in France on loan, this time with Corsican club Bastia. Upon his arrival to the club, Diarra was inserted as a starter by manager Gérard Gili and paid immediate dividends scoring in back-to-back weeks in a 4–2 win against Guingamp and a 4–1 loss to Auxerre in September. On 7 March 2004, he scored a goal in Bastia's surprising 4–1 win over Marseille. Diarra ultimately finished the campaign with 38 total appearances and four goals. After the season, Diarra returned to Liverpool for pre-season training, however, not under the guidance of his recruiter Houllier, but under Spanish coach Rafael Benítez. As a result, he was, for the third consecutive season, linked with a loan move. His non-inclusion on the club's roster for its North America tour meant a loan move was inevitable and, on 27 July 2004, he was loaned to Lens.

Similar to his stint at Bastia, Diarra was included in the team as a starter by coach Joël Muller. The season was a major success for Diarra as he was the only player in the team to start every league match he played for the club. He also served as captain for a majority of the season. His consistent performances led to his call up to the senior national team. Diarra scored his first goal of the campaign in a 1–1 draw with Ajaccio. He scored the goal in the opening minute of the match. On 6 February 2005, Diarra scored the opener in team's 2–0 win over Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes. He finished the campaign with 37 total appearances and two goals. Diarra also collected 11 yellow cards.

### Lens

After establishing himself as a premier player in France and an international during the 2004–05 campaign, Benítez declared that Diarra still had a future at Liverpool stating "I think it's still early days for him, but it's good news for us to see a young player doing so well. If he continues to play well for his club and is in the national team, we will be reminding everyone he is our player". However, in April 2005, Diarra revealed that he wanted to stay with Lens for the long-term. After finishing the season, on 24 June 2005, Liverpool granted his request after Lens reached an agreement with the club on a transfer fee, purported to be €3.2 million. Diarra finished his Liverpool career with no first-team appearances and only one club appearance, which came in a pre-season friendly.

Diarra remained a starter at Lens and also retained his consistency appearing in a career-high 44 matches, scoring two goals, and providing four assists. His two goals came in a 2–1 away win over Nancy and a 2–2 draw with Nice. Diarra also played European football for the first time in his career playing in the 2005–06 edition of the UEFA Cup. He made his European debut on 3 July 2005 in a UEFA Intertoto Cup second round tie against Polish club Lech Poznań. Diarra ultimately appeared in ten matches in the club's European campaign as Lens reached the Round of 32 where the club was defeated 3–1 on aggregate by Italian outfit Udinese.

### Lyon

Following the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Diarra was linked with a move to the then five-time defending champions Lyon where he could reunite with former manager Gérard Houllier. On 23 August 2006, the move came to fruition following the departure of Diarra's namesake, Mahamadou, who moved to Spanish club Real Madrid for a fee of €26 million. The transfer fee was priced at €6.25 million and Diarra was assigned the number 18 shirt. Diarra struggled to make an impact at the club as Houllier preferred the younger Jérémy Toulalan and Tiago Mendes as his starting defensive midfielder and box-to-box midfielder, respectively. He made his club debut late in the season on 16 September 2006 in the team's 3–1 away win over Lorient. Diarra scored his first goal for the club on 6 December 2006 in the club's final UEFA Champions League group stage match against Romanian club Steaua București. The match ended in a 1–1 draw. Two weeks later, he scored his second goal in the team's 3–1 win over Nancy in the Coupe de la Ligue quarterfinals.

Following the winter break, Diarra struggled with a thigh injury and didn't appear with the team for almost three months. In March 2007, he finally returned to the team in its 3–1 win over Derby du Rhône rivals Saint-Étienne appearing as a substitute. During the season, Diarra complained twice with regards to playing time, which led to Houllier equivocally questioning Diarra's ego. The feud culminated on 6 April when Houllier dropped Diarra from the squad to face Valenciennes the following day and then ordered him to play for the club's reserve team in the Championnat de France amateur, the fourth level of French football. Diarra refused the orders and Houllier responded by reportedly threatening not to play him for the rest of the season. The Lyon manager later stated the Diarra should issue an apology to him and the team. The defensive midfielder did not budge and, subsequently, missed the team's next four league matches, as well as the 2007 Coupe de la Ligue Final. Diarra returned to the team on 28 April playing the entire match in a 3–1 win over Le Mans. He repeated this feat in three of the team's last five matches as Lyon were crowned champions for the sixth consecutive season. Included in one of those three matches was Diarra's first league goal for the club, which came in a 3–0 victory over his former club Lens.

### Bordeaux

#### 2007–2009

After the 2006–07 season with Lyon, Diarra sought to play for another club and was linked primarily to English clubs Manchester City and Portsmouth. In July 2007, Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas confirmed that the club had accepted a bid of £5 million from Portsmouth. However, Aulas also revealed that Diarra refused the move and preferred to stay in France and join Bordeaux. On 20 July, after a week-long negotiation, Bordeaux confirmed the signing of Diarra. The midfielder signed a four-year contract and the transfer fee was priced at €7.75 million. Diarra stated his primary reason for joining Bordeaux over Portsmouth was because Bordeaux "wants to play for the first positions in Ligue 1 and I am attracted to that". Diarra was signed as a replacement for the departed Rio Mavuba who ventured to Spain. His arrival to the club also coincided with the insertion of former football player Laurent Blanc as manager.

Diarra was assigned the number 4 shirt and made his competitive debut for the club on 4 August 2007 in a 1–0 league win over his former club Lens receiving a yellow card. On 29 August, he scored his first goal for the club in its 1–0 win over Metz. Diarra was a regular within the starting lineup for the entire season starting all 36 league matches he appeared in. He formed excellent midfield partnerships with box-to-box midfielders Alejandro Alonso and Fernando Menegazzo who gave Diarra the freedom to distribute the ball and dismantle impending attacks from the opposition. On 2 December, Diarra scored a goal in Bordeaux's 4–3 win over Derby de la Garonne rivals Toulouse.

Diarra also participated in European competition with Bordeaux during the season. He played in four matches during the club's UEFA Cup campaign. Bordeaux reached the Round of 32 where the club was eliminated by Belgian club Anderlecht on a 3–2 aggregate scoreline. In the Coupe de France, Bordeaux reached the quarter-finals. Diarra appeared in all four matches the team contested, which included playing 120 minutes in back-to-back rounds. He scored two more goals for the club; both of which came in the league in wins over Metz and Rennes. Bordeaux finished the season in second place; four points behind the champions Lyon. It was the closest gap Lyon had endured since the 2003–04 season when the club won the league by three points over Paris Saint-Germain. Diarra finished the season with 44 total appearances and four goals.

In the 2008–09 season, Diarra remained a starter as Bordeaux was boosted by the arrival of the influential Yoann Gourcuff. He appeared in Bordeaux's 5–4 win on penalties in the 2008 Trophée des Champions. Bordeaux capitalized on the momentum by going undefeated in eight of its nine opening league matches. Included in those matches was Diarra's first red card for the club, which came in a 1–0 win over Grenoble after he collected two yellow cards. The two infractions came within a span of five minutes. On 21 December 2008, Diarra scored the second team goal in Bordeaux's 4–3 comeback win over Monaco at the Stade Louis II. Bordeaux had trailed 3–0 with 40 minutes to go in the match. In the Coupe de la Ligue, Bordeaux won the competition. Diarra missed the final match due to injury, but did play in the semi-final match, a 3–0 win over Paris Saint-Germain, that resulted in Bordeaux qualifying for the final. In the 2008–09 edition of the UEFA Champions League, Diarra appeared in all six group stage matches Bordeaux played in and scored a goal against English club Chelsea in a 1–1 draw. The club's third-place finish in its group meant a return to the UEFA Cup where Bordeaux was eliminated in the Round of 32 for the second consecutive season.

On 19 April 2009, Diarra scored the only goal in Bordeaux's 1–0 win over title rivals Lyon at the Stade de Gerland. The victory helped the club create a gap between itself and Lyon. Bordeaux, subsequently, went on a six-match winning streak to close out the season, which resulted in the club capturing the sixth title in its history and its first since 1999. Bordeaux also recorded its second ever double, as a result of its league cup title. Diarra finished the season with a career-high 45 total appearances and three goals.

#### 2009–2011

Ahead of the 2009–10 season, following the replacement of captain Ulrich Ramé as the starting goalkeeper, Blanc tipped Diarra as his replacement to wear the armband. He began the season claiming his fourth silverware with Bordeaux on 25 July 2009, winning the 2009 Trophée des Champions title in a 2–0 victory over Guingamp. In the third match of the league, Diarra scored his first goal of the season in a 3–0 win over Nice. Diarra appeared frequently in the starting lineup during the first half of the campaign, but struggled with injuries through January–March. He missed the first leg of the team's Round of 16 tie with Greek club Olympiacos. In the second leg, Diarra returned to the team, but was ejected from the match in the second half after receiving two yellow card infractions. The ejection meant Diarra would miss the first leg of the team's quarter-final tie with league rivals Lyon. Bordeaux lost the tie 3–2 on aggregate. Diarra returned to league play on 13 March 2010 and played the rest of the league campaign missing only one match. Due to injuries to Gourcuff and the declining form of Marouane Chamakh, Bordeaux suffered a dip in form in the spring season, which resulted in Bordeaux failing defend its title or qualify for European competition.

Prior to the start of the 2010–11 season, Diarra was heavily linked with a move to the champions Marseille. On 14 July, Marseille manager Didier Deschamps confirmed that the club was negotiating with both Diarra and Bordeaux for a transfer. A week later, Bordeaux president Triaud stated that Marseille had failed to meet the player's €7.75 million release clause and that Diarra was likely not going to be leaving the club. Despite Marseille remaining hopeful a deal could go through, on 30 July, a deal was declared dead. Diarra later stated that he was happy to remain at Bordeaux and see out the rest of his contract. The defensive midfielder opened the new campaign scoring two goals in the first six matches of the season in wins over Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon.

On 16 October 2010, Diarra was involved in a controversial dispute, which resulted in the player being banned from playing league football for six matches. After receiving a yellow card booking from referee Wilfried Bien in the team's 1–0 win over Auxerre, Diarra responded by pushing the referee with both hands. He was immediately shown a red card and dismissed from the match. After walking off the field, Diarra turned back, walked over to Bien and apologized for the confrontation. After the match, Diarra apologized again for the incident. He was supported by his former coach Laurent Blanc who stated that Diarra made a simple mistake that he immediately regretted as soon as he realized what he did. Diarra was initially suspended for three matches, however, following a November tribunal by the Ligue de Football Professionnel, his suspension was upgraded to six matches. Diarra returned to the team on 27 November playing only the first half in the team's 1–1 draw with Lille.

### Marseille

On 4 July 2011, Diarra completed his much-anticipated move from Bordeaux to league rivals Marseille agreeing to a three-year contract. The transfer fee was undisclosed, but is reported to be in the region of €5 million.

### West Ham United

On 10 August 2012, Diarra moved back to England to join West Ham United on a three-year contract, for an undisclosed fee. After joining West Ham United, Diarra said he was delighted to join the club and was looking forward to play in the Premier League. Chairman Vincent Labrune said he had been sold in order to reduce the wage bill.

Diarra made his debut for West Ham on 25 August in a 3–0 away defeat to Swansea City coming on as a 69th-minute substitute for Mohamed Diamé. Having made three appearances, Diarra first team opportunities soon became limited when he suffered thigh strain during training in September. In the January transfer window, Diarra made a request to leave the club and criticised Sam Allardyce for holding him back by not explaining his [Allardyce] team selection. Diarra also said that his time at West Ham United has become a waste of time

After the move, Diarra claimed he was conned when his "well known" agent lied to him to join West Ham United. Diarra criticized West Ham United for his pre-season training schedule, having finished Euro 2012. Despite his comments Diarra returned to West Ham for the beginning of the 2013–14 season. In his second game of the season, a League Cup game against Cheltenham Town, he was carried-off injured after 34 minutes having damaged his anterior cruciate ligament. He was expected to miss the whole of the season due to this injury. Unexpectedly, Diarra returned to fitness in 2013 making his return in a 2–1 away win against Tottenham Hotspur on 18 December 2013 in the League Cup. On 9 July 2014, he left West Ham on a mutual agreement to terminate his remaining one-year deal.

#### Loan move to Rennes

On 31 January 2013 (the transfer deadline), Diarra joined Rennes, on loan until the end of season. Several days after returning to France, Diarra made his debut, coming on as a substitute and providing assist for debutant Axel Ngando, who scored his first goal for the club to settle a draw with Lorient. Diarra made twelve appearances before returning to West Ham United after manager Frédéric Antonetti publicity criticised him, claiming "he has not been able to give all that he could give".

### Charlton Athletic

On 23 February 2015, Diarra signed a deal with Championship side Charlton Athletic to last until the end of the season and scored his first goal in a 2–1 loss to rivals Millwall. He later signed an extension till the summer of 2016, with the option of an extra year. On 1 September 2016, Diarra's contract with Charlton was cancelled by mutual consent and on account of wanting to go back to France with his family.

### Nancy

On 1 September 2016, Diarra joined AS Nancy, which was promoted to Ligue 1 after winning the 2015–16 Ligue 2 title, on a one-season deal. On 15 October 2016, Diarra scored Nancy's only goal in a 2–1 home defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in a Ligue 1 match by heading in Benoît Pedretti's free kick from the right in the 55th minute. That was his first Ligue 1 goal since scoring one for Olympique de Marseille in early 2012. He left the club at the end of the season.

## International career

### Youth

Diarra is a former French youth international having earned caps at under-20 and under-21 level. He earned his first international youth call up in 2001 by coach Raymond Domenech ahead of the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship. Diarra played in the first group stage match; a 5–0 hammering of Iran. In the 30th minute of the match against Iran, Diarra was substituted out due to an injury. The injury was deemed severe and Diarra missed the rest of the tournament. France ultimately crashed out of the competition in the quarter-finals losing 3–1 to a Javier Saviola-led Argentina. Diarra's only other confirmed appearance with the under-20 team was in a 1–0 win over Egypt in April 2002.

Diarra earned his first call up to the under-21 team in August 2002 for a friendly match against Cyprus. He made his debut in the match as France cruised to a 1–0 victory. Diarra featured regularly within the team as France attempted to qualify for both the 2004 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship and the football tournament at the 2004 Summer Olympics. France failed to qualify for both competitions, which resulted in the end of Diarra's youth career. He appeared in 10 competitive matches with the team and scored his only goal in a 3–1 UEFA U21 tournament qualification win over Israel. In December 2003, Diarra was called up to the Mali national team to participate in the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations. Diarra turned down the opportunity to represent the nation of his parents in order to continue his career with his home country France.

### Senior

On 13 August 2004, Diarra was named to the senior national team for the first time by Domenech to participate in a friendly match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. He did not make his debut in the match, but was named to the team again in October for 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification matches against the Republic of Ireland and Cyprus. Diarra earn his debut cap in the match against Ireland appearing as a substitute for Olivier Dacourt in a 0–0 draw. He featured with the team heavily in World Cup qualification primarily as a substitute for either Patrick Vieira or Claude Makélélé and, following France's qualification for the tournament, was named to the team to participate in the competition. In the competition, Diarra appeared in two matches. He appeared as a substitute for Vieira in the team's final group stage match against Togo and repeated this in the final match against Italy. France lost the final 5–3 in a penalty shootout, which Diarra did not participate in.

After appearing in a November 2006 friendly match against Greece, Diarra was absent from the national team for nearly two years, partly due to his struggle for playing time in Lyon. As a result, he missed UEFA Euro 2008, although he was named to the competition's preliminary squad. After regaining his form at Bordeaux, Diarra began making his way back into the team and participated in seven 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches. He was later selected to participate in his second consecutive FIFA World Cup. France endured a disastrous campaign as the players went on strike in response to its disagreement over the expulsion of striker Nicolas Anelka from the team. In the team's final group stage match against hosts South Africa, with several veteran players missing from the squad, Diarra was rewarded with the captaincy for the first time in his international career and led the team to a 2–1 loss, which resulted in its elimination from the competition.

Diarra was one of several players retained by incoming coach Laurent Blanc, his former manager. After missing the August 2010 friendly due to suspension, he returned to the team in September playing the entire match in 2–0 wins over both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania. Diarra served as captain in both matches. On 9 February 2011, he captained the team for the fifth time in his career in their 1–0 victory over Brazil. Though, Blanc has yet to declare a permanent captain, Diarra has been declared the favorite to land the armband by several French news publications.

## Coaching career

In 2018, Diarra joined French club Lens as an assistant coach for the club's under-19 side. He eventually became an assistant for the reserve team, and in 2020, for the club's senior team coached by Franck Haise. Diarra left Lens in 2022, joining Troyes as manager of the under-19 side in the Championnat National U19.

## Career statistics

### International

Source:

## Honours

Lens

- UEFA Intertoto Cup: 2005

Lyon

- Ligue 1: 2006–07

Bordeaux

- Ligue 1: 2008–09
- Trophée des Champions: 2008, 2009

Marseille

- Coupe de la Ligue: 2011–12
- Trophée des Champions: 2011

France

- FIFA World Cup runner-up: 2006

## See also

- Sub-Saharan African community of Paris

French association football player

France men's under-21 international footballers

France men's youth international footballers

French expatriate sportspeople in England

French expatriate sportspeople in Germany

People from Villepinte, Seine-Saint-Denis