We report a photoemission study on high-quality single-crystal graphite epitaxially grown on SiC. The results are interpreted using independent information on the final states obtained by very-low-energy electron diffraction. Significant intrinsic photoemission and surface effects are identified, which distort the photoemission response and narrow the observed dispersion range of the pi state. We assess its true dispersion range using a model photoemission calculation. A significant dependence of the excited-state self-energy effects on the wave-function character is found. The experimental results are compared with a GW calculation.