Perrault was born and raised in Montreal, the son of a prosperous lumber merchant, and attended the most prestigious private schools in the city.
While there, with Hubert Aquin and Marcel Dubé, he founded the student journal Cahiers d’Arlequin, in which he published his first play, Pierre en vrac.
In 1956, he permanently left the law and began writing for Le chant des hommes, a daily Radio Canada series about folk music.
Perrault and Bonnière came up with the idea of turning the Charlevoix interviews and recordings, and the resultant radio show scripts, into documentary shorts.
through his later films on Abitibi and First Nations people, he expressed the concept of 'ethnic class' that some feel avoids more basic issues, even though it gave voice to long-buried cultural aspirations.
"[2] Perrault's life and work were analyzed by Jean-Daniel Lafond in the 1986 documentary Dream Tracks (Les Traces du rêve).
(1971) Oumigmag or the Fickle Art of Documentary Filmmaking (1993) Icewarrior (1996) Most of Perrault’s writings were adapted from his radio programs and films.