Robert Beck is Alive and Well and Living in NYC (2002)

Robert Beck, an American soldier from Chicago, served in World War I. Shellshock left him deaf and mute, and he was sent to an English sanitarium for recovery. During a movie screening, Beck unexpectedly began to laugh and was cured. He later became the patron saint of New York's Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, which screens films exploring the extraordinary. In 2000, performance artist and filmmaker Stuart Sherman presented several of his films, combined with "perfilmances" reenacting Robert Beck's story. Lee Ellickson filmed this event. Sherman died in San Francisco on September 14, 2001, possibly before this New York performance.