Fellini's women play many roles, with most characters seeming to fill a niche in the male protagonist's life scheme and specific neediness. Prominent among these is the primal sex object and/or the available whore.

In several instances, he looks back with some fondness on his earliest sexual experiences as a preadolescent. In 8-1/2, young Marcello's encounter with the grotesque Saraghina is filled with excitement, child-like delight mixed with cruelty, wonder, trepidation, fear and ultimately guilt. Again, Fellini faithfully recalls a seemingly universal male experience with awakening sexuality. Little Marcello and his friends don't seem to really understand why they should be excited, but they are. Saraghina's crude, raw sexuality and the boys' response are portrayed with crosscuts between her suggestive gyrations and their initial unmoving shock and subsequent joyful leaping. Invited to closer contact, he responds with alternating approach and avoidance, ended by the inevitable peer pressure as the other boys push him forward. To top it off, Fellini portrays one of the worst possible childhood fates — being caught red-handed by adults.

In City of Women, he recalls a similar early experience, this time with a loving, maternal figure (a nanny or maid). Young Marcello reacts to her affection with what is for him a confusing mix of sexual excitement and returned affection. His eyes (and the camera movement, shooting from a low, child's perspective) are drawn to her exposed cleavage and her open skirt above his head as he crawls beneath her, mixed with cuts to her strong arms, full figure, her continuing maternal household duties and her unconditional maternal embrace. With this brief montage, Fellini effectively sums the emotions and sensations that were passing through young Marcello (and young Fellini?) during this early relationship.

Maddelena, in La Dolce Vita, has a more complex relationship with the adult Marcello. She is a much more complex character than most of Fellini's mix. Her behavior and words could fall into a Madonna/Whore category, particularly in the final villa scene in which she confesses her mixed impulses between fidelity and sexuality. The imagery, at right, adds to the ironic church-like atmosphere as she 'confesses' her feelings and 'sins' to Marcello. However, her role, again unlike most of the others, defies easy description. She is also a friend and confidant, unlike any other of the male protagonists' sex partners in these films. In some ways, she almost seems a female mirror of Marcello's character — somewhat bewildered, ambivalent, torn by conflicting impulses, trying to do the right thing, ultimately unfaithful. Her character is the most sympathetic and appealing of the women he characterizes in any of these films. She is worthy of respect, yet she remains accessible and human. She is needy, but her expectations seem to be atuned to Marcello's capacity to give. If this relationship is as autobiographical as most of Fellini's work, then his relationship with her was clearly unique.

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